CLIMATE RESET

Despite these impacts intensifying and compounding, existing approaches fail to provide a clear, comprehensive, and credible picture of the scale and severity of the threat.

At the same time, warming is accelerating towards 3 degrees and emissions projections show little decline to 2050, while national responses remain anchored to assumptions that increasingly underestimate risk. Incremental policy adjustments, long-dated targets, and fragmented assessments risk normalising a level of danger that is neither stable nor manageable. The result is a widening gap between climate reality and Australia’s readiness to protect people, communities, and the country.

Against this backdrop, there is growing interest in whether Australia requires a new focal point to help understand and respond to the climate emergency—one capable of bringing together the best available evidence, grappling honestly with high-end risks, and supporting clear-eyed action at the scale the emergency demands.

Key questions now coming into focus include: What value would a climate action reset provide? How would it differ from past and existing efforts, assessments, advocacy, or summits? What would be required for it to be genuinely impactful for decision-makers, institutions, and the wider public? In particular, how could such an intervention shift what Australia plans for and how it responds, so it matches the scale of risk we now face?

Such a reset could be embodied in a national climate emergency briefing—an event or platform designed to bring together decision-makers and the public for an honest update on the state of the climate emergency and the actions needed. The aim is to go beyond not only Australia’s dangerously inadequate risk assessments but also the flawed response strategies currently in place. Its purpose is not simply to inform, but to place these risks formally on the public record and confront senior decision-makers with their implications in a transparent, national setting. By creating such a platform, we offer the most unvarnished, up-to-date picture of the threats we face and drive a level of response that matches the scale and urgency of those risks, because the current approach is failing to provide the protection we need.

To support this work, the National Climate Emergency Summit is initiating focused engagement to lay the groundwork for future national climate emergency action. A Draft Framework for Action has been developed to guide discussion and development.

National Climate Emergency Reset: Draft Framework for Action

1. Establish the Climate Baseline

Observed Conditions and Emissions Trajectory

Set out a clear, evidence-based picture of Australia’s current climate reality and trajectory. Bring together observed warming, extreme weather trends, ecosystem stress, and biodiversity loss, alongside national and global emissions projections. The aim is to establish a shared factual baseline of where Australia stands now—and where current policy settings are taking us.

2. Reassess Systemic Risk

Tipping Points, Cascades, and Abrupt Change

Re-examine climate risk through a systemic lens. Identify key Earth-system and regional tipping elements relevant to Australia and the Indo-Pacific, and assess the potential for cascading impacts and abrupt change. Focus on how interacting risks can amplify impacts, overwhelm response capacity, and destabilise social, economic, and institutional foundations.

3. Bring High-End Australian Impacts Into View

Including Possibilities, Not Just Probabilities

Confront the upper bounds of climate risk. Move beyond median projections to examine plausible high-end outcomes with severe consequences, including compound disasters, infrastructure failure, health system stress, and large-scale ecological loss. The purpose is to clarify what is at stake if worst-case dynamics unfold as they appear to be doing.

4. Frame Plausible Futures

What a Climate-Disrupted Australia Could Look Like

Translate risk into lived national consequences. Develop integrated scenarios showing how climate impacts could unfold across regions, sectors, and timeframes under continued warming. Use these scenarios to support strategic foresight, stress-test policy assumptions, and strengthen preparedness—rather than to predict outcomes.

5. Realign Response Pathways With Risk

Response Options and Solution Pathways

Identify response options commensurate with the scale and urgency of the threat. Set out immediate and longer-term actions action, with a focus on measures that reduce near-term harm and strengthen long-term protection. Emphasise coordinated national action, policy coherence, and alignment with a safe climate framing. The emphasis is on sufficiency and speed, rather than incremental steps.

6. Drive National Mobilisation and Leadership

From Recognition to Action

Set out a clear call to action. Make the case for whole-of-nation mobilisation, decisive leadership at all levels of government, and sustained engagement across institutions, industry, and civil society. Emphasise urgency, responsibility, and the necessity of acting now to reduce escalating risks and safeguard Australia. This includes creating a visible moment of accountability in which national leaders are publicly confronted with the consequences of inaction.