The Climate Targets Panel
released 28 January 2021
The authors of the current paper have prepared this report to ensure that debate about the targets Australia takes to these upcoming summits to meet the Paris Agreement 2°C goal are informed by sound science and policy.
Australia Post & Banksia Foundation
released 28 January 2021
This paper examines what the key drivers and sustainability issues are for small businesses right now, and explores how small businesses can be better prepared to tackle a world impacted by COVID-19. Importantly, this paper points to the SDGs as the global blueprint for regeneration, and proposes a clear roadmap
for the way forward. I trust this paper will stimulate thought and action in small businesses across Australia.
Climate Council
27 January 2021
The report outlines the latest science on how climate change is driving more destructive heatwaves, downpours, cyclones, droughts, fires and other extreme weather events. It highlights significant events in Australia and around the world from the past two years. Taken alone, any one of the events described in this report – from Australia’s Black Summer bushfires to the record breaking North Atlantic hurricane season, or the remarkable Siberian heatwave – would mark the year as unusual. Taken together, they paint a disturbing portrait of our rapidly escalating climate emergency.
CSIRO
released 22 January 2021
This report suggests that Australia has what it needs to launch a circular economy strategy that will both address fundamental environmental issues and foster economic development and employment.
World Economic Forum
released 19 January 2021
The 16th edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report analyses the risks from societal fractures—manifested through persistent and emerging risks to human health, rising unemployment, widening digital divides, youth disillusionment, and geopolitical fragmentation. Businesses risk a disorderly shakeout which can exclude large cohorts of workers and companies from the markets of the future. Environmental degradation—still an existential threat to humanity—risks intersecting with societal fractures to bring about severe consequences. Yet, with the world more attuned to risk, lessons can be drawn to strengthen response and resilience. In 2020, the risk of a pandemic became reality. As governments, businesses, and societies grapple with COVID-19, societal cohesion is more important than ever.
Australian Government, Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources
released 10 December 2020
This report provides detail on Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions trends to 2030, including sector specific analysis of factors driving emissions. The report estimates the emissions reduction effort required to meet Australia’s emissions reduction targets.
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
released 2 December 2020
The report builds on previous reports from 2014 and 2017 to track whether the conservation of the world’s 252 natural World Heritage sites is sufficient to protect them in the long term. It finds that climate change has overtaken invasive species as the top threat to natural World Heritage.