The horrific heat waves across the northern hemisphere should be a serious warning to all governments that the world is not doing enough to halt CO2 emissions. The heat has been accompanied by gigantic forest fires in Canada and some severe flooding in Asia.

Government responses have been mainly confined to measures to protect people from the heat. While this is obviously very necessary, it ignores the urgent need to address the underlying cause. This hemisphere wide weather event should be a signal to world leaders that they need to seriously rethink their plans to bring down CO2 emissions.

Net Zero fantasies

The international agreements coming out of the COP climate framework have focused on emission targets and dates for reaching “net zero”. This has allowed governments to kick the can down the road – postponing the implementation of the concrete actions that are needed.

It is quite obvious that many net zero plans are total nonsense, with much reliance on future technologies to remove CO2 from the air. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy in the Australian Labor government has recently dismissed the previous coal loving Liberal government’s climate goals as pure fantasy. On the other hand, he is not prepared to commit to specific sector targets or plans. He also said that there is not enough money for the required renewable program.

Despite the clear warnings from the devastating heat waves, it is business as usual for world governments.