The great governmental challenge of climate change

Abstract

The recently released fifth report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stresses the connection between climate change and severe weather events around the world, including devastating bushfires in places such as Australia. But what does this actually mean for governments? In the first decade of the 21st century many governments around the world unofficially competed with one another to show how serious they were about dealing with the threat of climate change. Perhaps the pithiest entry in this competition was this newsworthy slogan offered in 2007 by the soon-to-be Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd