Climate Science Without The Spin

Last winter, as I rode my e-bike across the Nullarbor along the edge of the Great Southern Ocean, I was stunned by the heat. It was supposed to be mid-winter in southern Australia, but I found myself riding under a blazing sun, getting sunburned in August. Temperatures above 30°C felt surreal, especially given that there was nothing to the south but ocean between me and Antarctica. But now, reading the latest American Meteorological Society State of the Climate report, I know it wasn’t just me. The planet itself was breaking records.

The AMS has been producing its global “report card” on the climate for 35 years. It’s peer-reviewed, written by hundreds of scientists from across the world, and is one of the most authoritative annual checks on the health of our planet. And its verdict for 2024 is pretty bad: greenhouse gases, global temperatures, sea levels, ocean heat, glacier melt, and humidity all hit new highs.

For the first time in human history, an entire calendar year averaged more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. That’s the threshold the Paris Agreement set as the line we should never cross if we want to avoid the most dangerous consequences of climate change. Yet 2024 came in at 1.55°C.

The oceans are heating faster than ever, storing more energy than at any point in the observational record. Global sea levels are rising at more than twice the rate they were in the 1990s. Humidity is compounding the heat, making deadly heatwaves even more dangerous. And the world’s glaciers lost more ice last year than in any year on record. It’s not just one or two indicators flashing red. It’s the entire dashboard.

What makes this report particularly powerful is its independence. The AMS is not a lobby or political group. It’s report doesn’t get sanitised by diplomats and politicians like the IPCC’s. The AMS doesn’t even tell governments what policies to adopt. It just lays out the facts. And these are built on hundreds of independent datasets, satellites, and ground measurements. They show Earth is in uncharted territory, and the trends are accelerating.

Australians don’t need to look far for proof. Rising seas threaten our coasts. Humidity and extreme heat are already hitting Western Sydney. Floods like those that swamped Kempsey and Taree this year are reminders that disruption is not a distant prospect but a present reality. And as I learned first-hand, even the Nullarbor in mid-winter now feels like a furnace.

So why, in the face of this overwhelming evidence, does our government keep approving new coal and gas projects? The contradiction is stark. On one hand, world-class scientists deliver a peer-reviewed warning that the climate is breaking records of instability. On the other, our PM and his ministers wave through fossil fuel approvals like there’s no tomorrow.

The State of the Climate is not just another report. It’s a mirror. It shows us, with precision and clarity, the path we’re on. And it should be making us ask whether we’re prepared to change course.

I know where I stand. I don’t want my kids - or anyone’s - to inherit a country where mid-winter sunburn on the Nullarbor is the least of their worries. The science is unambiguous. The time for excuses is well over. We have the tools but we need political will, courage and accountability to match the scale and urgency of what the science is screaming at us. Without these, the climate will keep breaking records, and it will break us too.