The Cop30 climate talks have ended in Brazil with a collective shrug of the shoulders after the Goliaths of the fossil energy industry once again flexed their muscles to show the world who is really in control.
As our Pacific Island neighbours pleaded for their very survival, more than 1,600 industry lobbyists crashed the party, joining forcing with the Saudis and Russians to kibosh the phase-out of fossil fuels.
The UN general secretary, António Guterres, has noted that the gap between action and science is not being bridged, a stark admission about the capacity of governments to exercise the wit, will or influence to tame the carbon beast.
According to this week’s Guardian Essential report, the Cop30 burnout on fossil fuels is hardly a surprise to most voters.
How confident are you that the outcomes of Cop30 will lead to meaningful action on climate change?
The Australian academic Luke Kemp, from the ominously named Cambridge University Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, frames the rises and falls of civilisation around the idea of the “Goliath”, a hierarchy that dominates labour and energy through coercion and violence.
While traditional empires including Rome projected power from a geographical base, today’s global Goliath is a network of stateless corporations and algorithms, rampaging the Earth as trade deals and treaties bend to their will.
In this context, Australia has probably dodged a bullet in failing to wrest hosting rights for next year’s talks in Adelaide, with a separate survey question showing support for the bid tepid at best.
With the US jettisoning climate action and scientists becoming increasingly sanguine about the potential to reverse global heating, there is a sense of sullen defeatism and powerlessness surrounding Australia’s climate abatements.
While voters remain broadly supportive of climate action, there is waning appetite for greater ambition, with many seeing Australia’s domestic emissions as marginal compared with the impact of big polluters.
They see what we can do as a drop in the ocean, a view reinforced by a global climate framework that confines a nation’s net contribution to what is consumed within its borders rather than the true amount corporations extract and export to the rest of the world.
Indeed, if net carbon contribution were the standard, Australia would be transformed from a global minnow to a big fish, given estimates that we are in the top three fossil fuel exporters, and in the top 10 global emitters overall.
Putting these facts upfront is not about making Australians feel bad about ourselves, it is about giving us a chance to recognise our own agency in affecting a global effort which too many of us believe is futile.
To what extent do you think the world will be able to prevent dangerous levels of global warming caused by climate change?
While we won’t be hosting Cop31, Australia will still have an outsized role in next year’s proceedings, with the climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, taking the consolation role of lead negotiator. Taking the reins with the authority of a nation that is serious about its global impact would only heighten his capacity to drive global ambition and champion our neighbours’ interests.
An even bigger challenge for those of us seeking more decisive climate action could be the increasing competition among the phalanx of existential risks – pandemic, nuclear warfare, sentient AI and unparalleled inequality.
Kemp argues that these are not standalone challenges. They create a poly-crisis where each feeds the other; climate collapse drives displacement, AI guzzles energy while powering inequality, 10,000 nuclear warheads are stockpiled as the temperature rises.
“These threats are not unavoidable,” he writes, “they are consciously created by powerful groups who profit handsomely from the endeavour. Global catastrophic risk is the product of the worldwide system of extraction: the Global Goliath.”
A final poll question illustrates how the climate crisis has been subsumed by this maelstrom of interconnected disasters; not so much ignored but now one of many things to doomscroll about.
How concerned are you about the following existential threats?
It is only the possibility of a meteor strike, arguably the sole act of God on the list, where people’s concern levels are under control. When it comes to Goliath-induced catastrophes, we are on high alert.
Amid all this doom, Kemp’s study of fallen empires concludes that Goliaths contain the seeds of their own demise, cursed by the very qualities that give them power; the unsustainability of their domination and the destruction of the resources they plunder.
Projecting the trajectory of existential risk beyond the life of current horizons, say 100 years, one of two things must happen: the Goliaths self-terminate or we find a way to work together and slay the giant.
Kemp’s prognosis is that we recognise that governments have been captured by the Goliaths and organise ourselves into an army of Davids, redistributing power through open democracy and citizen juries.
While this seems like a massive leap from our moment of powerlessness, there are green shoots appearing. Last week I released a paper in collaboration with some terrific academics under the auspices of the Australian Resilience Democracy Network, looking at efforts to use technology to give citizens a greater say in decisions that affect our futures.
Our research shows how there are nascent attempts to embed citizens into decision making by re-plumbing democracy, flattening hierarchies and constructing more dynamic feedback loops that have real consequence.
Whether it’s the rollout of renewables, the diffusion of AI, the provision of services or the future of the planet, we need to wrest back control before we all give up hope. Because when there are no more Davids, then Goliath has really won.
Peter Lewis is the executive director of Essential, a progressive strategic communications and research company that undertook research for Labor in the last election and conducts qualitative research for Guardian Australia. He is the host of Per Capita’s Burning Platforms podcast
