I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains
When homesick 19 year old Dorothea Mackellar wrote her poem My Country, while travelling through Europe with her father, she unleashed an emotional attachment in many to this land of ‘droughts and flooding rains.’
Often used to refute warnings about climate change, it serves as a rallying point for some to dismiss scientific data that shows us heading for difficult times.
This week Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Australia will commit to cutting emissions by between 62 per cent and 70 per cent by 2035.
While the country remains divided on the speed and scope of the transition, there is increasing momentum toward embracing renewable energy as a key part of Australia’s future energy mix.
This week, the National Climate Risk Assessment Report highlighted some of the realities we are facing as the planet continues to warm; increased deadly heatwaves, floods, rising sea levels and worsening bushfires: resulting in economic and health problems.
Those who reject that global warming is the result of human activity see the cycles of extreme weather events that Mackellar wrote about as natural and that when they pass the land ‘pays us back threefold.’
At the time, Mackellar was writing Australia and the world was a different place.
Australia’s population was only about 3.8 million and global population was 1.65 billion.
It was a resource-exporting settler economy: rich in mining and agriculture, with growing but modest manufacturing, and already very urban and infrastructure-rich for its size.
And people led simpler life styles.
From the early observations about the greenhouse effect to today’s urgent warnings, the science has become clearer and the conversation about addressing it has reached a global scale.
Going back as far as early 19th century, scientists were already warning about global warming and greenhouse effect.
Svante Arrheniusn a Swedish scientist suggested that increases in carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels from burning coal would lead to global warming and rising temperatures: a ground breaking idea at the time.
Awareness of the impact of human activity grew over the century, and in 1979 at the First World Climate Conference scientists discussed the potential impact of human activities on global temperatures.
The conference warned that human-induced climate change could be a serious problem in the coming decades.
In 1997, The Kyoto Protocol committed developed nations to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
A significant step but limited by the absence of some major emitters like the U.S.
By the 2000s increased evidence showed with greater confidence that human activities, particularly burning of fossil fuels, are responsible for most of global warming.
The Paris Agreement of 2015 saw a historic international effort to limit global warming to well below 2°C, aiming for 1.5°C if possible.
The agreement recognized the need for collective action, with countries committing to carbon reduction goals.
By the 2020s: reports warn that climate change is now unequivocal and human influence on the climate system is clear.
Extreme weather events like heatwaves, floods, and wildfires are becoming more frequent and intense.
Just think of the wildfires that have swept this year through countries like the US, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece and ice melting in the Arctic and Antarctic.
The ice caps are melting,
The world’s heat is rising,
The earth turns on,
But who will survive it?“
The Icecaps by Derek Jacobi
China, now a powerhouse of manufacturing has in recent years adopted a fairly ambitious set of policies, targets, and actions to address global warming.
Some of these are already yielding results, though there are also challenges and criticisms.
A part of China’s strategy is increasing the share of nonfossil fuels (solar, wind, nuclear, hydro) in its energy mix.
In both Australia and the Pacific, climate change is visible to the naked eye: burning forests, bleaching reefs, shrinking rivers, drowned coastlines, and shifting wildlife.
For Pacific countries, climate change isn’t a distant risk — it’s already eroding land, food security, and livelihoods, and forcing them to fight for their very existence on the world stage.
As Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner –Marshallese poet; speaking at the UN Climate Summit in 2014 addresses her infant
daughter.
No one’s drowning, baby
no one’s moving
no one’s losing
their homeland
no one’s gonna become
a climate change refugee
From Dear Matafele Peinem.
In 2023, Australia joined the Clean Energy Transition Partnership at COP28.
The CETP requires ending direct support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector, with some limited exceptions.
It was unsettling to see Woodside being given the recent approval of the massive Woodside gas project in Western Australia.
It’s described as a “climate bomb” for its impact on global emissions, but the gas will be exported, so it won’t count on Australia’s emissions ledger.
Last year was the hottest year on record, at 1.55 degrees above pre-industrial levels, but this was a single year.
Scientists look at the long-term average, and on that basis, the planet has warmed 1.3 to 1.4 degrees.
Australia has warmed 1.5 degrees.
This will impact on both the environment and human health.
We see the damage to the Ningaloo reef in WA, the disastrous algae bloom in SA and the Barrier Reef in Queensland.
Now our heads are full of wreckage,
The ocean is full of wreckage,
The planet’s running down.
Excerpt The Planet on the Table by Craig Arnold.
The problem of climate change cannot be left solely the responsibility of governments.
There is concern as to what kind of an economy and environment are we leaving to our children, grandchildren and great-grand children.
In Grace Paley’s poem Responsibility she directly addresses the realities of climate change and the moral responsibility of humans to address the crisis.
Paley uses humour and irony to reflect on the human tendency to ignore urgent problems, despite overwhelming evidence.
There is the ice that melts in the water
And the smoke that rises to the sky.
We have been told. But we ignore it.
We are so busy, so busy.
Responsibility -excerpt
Entries for the Woorilla Poetry Prize close on 30 September 2025
