Full Responses to Good Weekend Questions

In June 2025, Good Weekend journalist Gay Alcorn interviewed Professor Ross Garnaut for a feature on Sarah Wilson and ‘collapse theory’. Ross’ full responses are published below to provide deeper context to the many issues raised.

So what does a realist think in 2025 about humanity’s prospects of dealing effectively with the climate problem?

I’ve always said that this is a hard policy problem. In my 2008 report to the Prime Minister and State Premiers I described it as “a diabolical policy problem…harder than any other issue of high importance that has come before our polity in living memory. Observation of daily debate and media discussion in Australia suggests that (it) might be too hard for rational policy making. It is too complex. The special interests are too numerous, powerful and intense. The time frames within which effects become evident are too long and the time frames within which action must be effected too short.”

But it was a diabolical problem with a saving grace. The grace was strong community interest in the problem and in finding a solution, in Australia and many other countries.

In the 17 years since the Garnaut Climate Change Review was presented to Australian heads of government, enough has gone well in Australia and in the world for it still to be possible to hold global temperature increases to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels—the maximum ambition that I discussed in 2008.

In Australia, for 2 years we had the world’s most effective and economically efficient set of climate policies. For 2 years, emissions in the covered sectors fell at a rate that would lead to net zero by 2050, with no negative effect on economic output or on the living standards of low- and middle-income Australians. Tony Abbott became Prime Minister in 2013 and destroyed the central element of the policy, carbon pricing, in 2014. The end of the carbon price roughly coincided with the beginning of Australia’s decade of income stagnation. Abbott did not become Prime Minister because his “axe the tax” was more popular than the Gillard climate policies (the exit polling in 2013 shows that it was not). Leadership instability within the Labor Government gifted Abbott the Prime Ministership. A decade after Abbott’s removal as Prime Minister, the Australian community is up for removal of the Abbott veto on sound climate policy.

In the world, there has been transformational progress over the past 17 years in technologies that reduce the cost of achieving net zero.

Some countries, mostly in Europe, have reduced emissions at rates consistent with holding temperature increases below 2 and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees. China contributed most of the increase in global emissions from 2008 until recently, but is now turning around in a way that is highly positive for global success.

In Australia, recent attempts to achieve admirable Albanese objectives within Abbott constraints have delivered poor results. US performance has been mixed, with positive elements during the Biden presidency being reversed and worse under Trump 2.0. Achievement of global net zero depends on the eventual abandonment in the US of Trump policies. We do not know whether and when that will happen.

Yes, it will be difficult for the world to achieve net zero by 2050. It’s still possible to succeed, and humans will live better lives if we succeed. If we fail, the welfare of people living after us will be much better if net zero is achieved in 2060 rather than 2070, and in 2070 rather than 2080. There is no deadline the passing of which makes the personal satisfactions of catharsis from giving up on ambitions for climate mitigation damage-free for the rest of humanity. The chances of humanity doing better are higher the more people continue to take arms against the sea of troubles, and the less who accept the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

You know the independent assessments of countries' efforts on emissions better than I do. Here's just one from late last year: "The UNFCCC’s dire assessment mirrors findings released last week by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which reported that no policies with “significant implications for global emissions” were implemented globally in 2023, putting the world on course for “catastrophic” warming of 3.1ºC by the end of the century." I can't see any assessment that the world will limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Use of fossil fuels is increasing as developing countries develop.

I know you are not an optimist, but what is your assessment of the likelihood of getting to net zero by 2050, and more crucially, making the big cuts needed this decade - we are nowhere near on track to that, as far as I can see (globally I mean). Given that, is Clive Hamilton (and others) right when they say that basically the world missed the deadline - it is now too late to avoid catastrophic climate change (not that we shouldn't keep trying) and that a much more honest acknowledgement of that by governments and others would lead to a greater focus on adaptation and resilience, which will also cost billions.

Look at my whole career, and you would describe me as a realist not an optimist. Kym Anderson and I had just about finished our book “Australian Protection: Extent, Causes and Effect”, when Bob Hawke asked me to be his main economic adviser on 5 March 1983. The book explained how much better off Australians would be if we removed protection against imports, how we could go about doing that, and why it was unlikely that we would do it. In decisions taken between March 1983 and March 1991, the Hawke Government did it.

Towards the end of my time as Australian Ambassador to China in 1988, I was made an Honorary Professor of the Wuhan Iron and Steel University. In my Inaugural Lecture, I explained how China’s commitment to near self-sufficiency in basic materials like iron ore would prevent achievement of China’s ambitions to quadruple GDP in two decades. If China’s reforms succeed, I said, China will be importing tens of millions of tonnes per annum of iron ore by the end of the century. The Premier of China, Li Peng, put out a statement with Xinhua a few weeks later: “Some foreigners say that China will be importing tens of millions of tonnes of iron ore by the end of the century, but those foreigners don’t understand the Chinese situation”. China now imports about a billion tonnes of iron ore per annum, mostly from Australia.

Rod Sims and I at the National Press Club on Valentine’s Day last year, said that building Australia as a Superpower of the zero-carbon world economy was impossible—just not as impossible as living with the consequences of not doing so. It's less impossible now than it was in February 2024. And not as impossible as removing Australian protection was in 1983, or China becoming overwhelmingly dependent on imports of iron ore in 1988.

It is a denial of science to speak of a “deadline” the missing of which makes action less important. No matter how high emissions concentrations in the atmosphere, and no matter how large the resulting increase in temperatures, temperatures and damage from climate change will continue to increase until emissions have fallen to net zero. Reducing focus on mitigation when we pass some “deadline” like 1.5 degrees or net zero by 2050 simply means that temperatures will be higher when humans get to net zero at some later time in future. In terms of incremental damage, the case for mitigation action may be stronger at higher temperatures: a specific volume of increased CO2 in the atmosphere may increase temperatures a bit less, but the damage from the increase may be greater. Giving up after you reach a specified temperature increase may have cathartic personal value for some individuals, but is damaging for humanity. And those who get personal satisfactions from giving up now are tiny in number compared with numbers living in the tens of millions of generations in the future. Those people in future will not share the personal cathartic value now of giving up, but will experience the costs of our having reduced our efforts before achieving net zero.

Yes, more attention should be given to adaptation to climate change. That was a full chapter of my 2008 Garnaut Climate Change Review. But it is a denial of logic and ethics to suggest that this increased effort should be accompanied by diminished focus on mitigation. There is much more reason to “pay for” increased effort on adaptation by reducing expenditure on gambling or investment in fossil fuels, or in many other ways, than to “pay for” adaptation by reducing emphasis on mitigation as suggested by the Collapse people that you cite.

“Collapse theory” misrepresents the nature of our choices. The logical link between effort on adaptation and effort on mitigation is the opposite of that proposed by the “Collapse” people: greater effort on adaptation will be more effective if accompanied by MORE effort on mitigation.

How does the "superpower" ideas of Australia’s comparative advantage in renewables generating substantial exports of goods embodying renewable energy fit in with the broader climate question? Is there time to do this; does it take into account the possible or likely catastrophic warming we are facing?

It is much less costly to produce a number of currently emissions-intensive products with zero emissions alternatives in countries with abundant renewable energy resources relative to economic size, than in countries with scarce renewable energy resources relative to economic size. Producing these goods in countries like Australia with relatively abundant renewable energy resources and exporting them to countries with relatively poor resources reduces the costs of transition to net zero in exporting and importing countries alike. Greatly reducing the costs of the transition in Europe and Northeast Asia and some other regions with relatively poor renewable energy resources increases the chances of timely achievement of net zero in the world as a whole. International trade in zero-carbon goods can be expected to bring forward in time as well as reduce the costs of achievement of net zero. It therefore reduces the chances and extent of catastrophic warming.

If there were slower progress on reducing global emissions, the Superpower industries would expand less rapidly in Australia than with more successful global mitigation. Lower investment in Australia would emerge from the reduced international opportunity through the normal mechanisms of a market economy. Australia need suffer no loss that would not have occurred without the existence of the Superpower opportunity.

If the world fails to reduce industrial emissions much or at all (and failure to that extent to reduce emissions is not a certain expectation at present), there will be some point at which national and international political order is overwhelmed by the effects of climate change. At that point, national policy on mitigation and adaptation and everything else becomes impossible, and irrelevant. We are not at that point now and we have no precise idea of when we may reach it.

The Blair institute analysis is interesting. I understand your critique of the new technologies the institute recommends, but what of Blair’s assessment that the COP process “will not deliver change at the speed required”, that what we are doing will not work and that political support is declining?

We can do lots of things better—including relying more on international trade in zero-carbon goods. It is in the interest of people everywhere to move faster. But it’s not true that global political support is declining. The election of Trump makes things worse in the US, but China is doing better. We are between success and failure, with the outcome in the balance. Huge forces are opposing success, and supporting it (see the lists in my Oxford lecture). The Collapse people may weaken the mitigation struggle a bit, but they are not yet numerous.

That leads on to a question I hear all the time from non-economists that I would love you to address. Blair suggests in his introduction that people in rich countries do not want to change their lifestyles - air travel is increasing, ideas of eating less meat are rejected - particularly in countries like Australia where our contribution to warming is small (that it’s China, India, Russia, US that really matter, not that Australia should not play its part). Is orthodox economics - the imperative of economic growth - compatible with a climate facing more than 2 degree warming, coupled with all the other stresses on the planet - huge biodiversity loss, overfishing, crisis of species extinction, likelihood of climate change-linked mass migration.

What you implicitly describe as “orthodox economics”—“the imperative of economic growth” of a particular kind--is not sound mainstream economics. I think that you are referring to orthodox ideas about the economy, and not orthodox economics. Sound economics takes account of costs to the environment of economic activity. Economists participating in a recent survey by the Economics Society of Australia overwhelmingly supported a carbon price. I’m not sure that you would get such a strong result from non-economists. At the beginning of economists’ measurement of GDP, there was recognition of the need to subtract environmental damage. Colin Clark made that clear in his pioneering use of national accounts in the 1930s and 1940s (see Conditions of Economic Progress (1940)). The views you attribute to “orthodox economics” may be held by some people who profess to be economists, but are likely to be found more abundantly amongst the business, political, cultural and media elites.

The views that you attribute to Tony Blair trivialise an issue that can be subject to serious analysis. To deal with the climate problem, there is no need to stop flying or eating meat. We have the technologies to produce fuels and meat without carbon emissions. It is possible to run aeroplanes on zero-carbon fuels made from biomass and green hydrogen. Only ruminant animals (sheep, cattle, camels, goats, and not marsupials, chickens or pigs) emit methane. We change our eating habits in response to economic incentives: we eat much less emissions-intensive meat per person in Australia than when the price of sheep and cattle meat relative to chicken and pork was lower. Technologies are available to greatly reduce the emissions-intensity of ruminant meat production. Not to mention zero-carbon cultured meat, which is chemically and gastronomically indistinguishable from meat from animals. And while the opportunities for sequestration of emissions in soils, plants and geological structures have to pass thorough tests of legitimacy, some legitimate offsets can help get us to net zero with some consumption of beef and mutton produced with some methane emissions.

Australia actually matters to the world mitigation effort. The Superpower can contribute perhaps 10 percent of total global emissions, and the hardest 10 percent. Australia using its Superpower opportunity materially increases the chances of economies with poor renewable energy resources of their own achieving net zero in a timely way. But so what if Australia were only 1 percent? The whole world has to get to net zero, and each country doing its proportionate part makes it easier for others. The big news is that by far the biggest emitter, China, may have reached peak emissions in 2024, 6 years ahead of its Paris/Glasgow commitment.

Climate-linked migration and biodiversity crises will be bigger the less work we do on mitigation and the later the world gets to net zero. With comprehensive failure of mitigation so that we never reach net zero, at some point there will be international and domestic political disorder. That really would be a point of collapse, when adaptation and mitigation and all other policies fall apart. We don’t know at what point of increasing temperatures that will occur. We can avoid it if we use the economic and technological opportunities available to us to move as quickly as possible towards net zero.

Some of the views alluded to in this question are based on a false view of economic growth. We have to get the measurement of output right, with deductions for environmental damage. Economic growth can then be measured as the increase in output of goods and services. Increases in output come from increases in the labour force (closely associated with population), increases in the capital stock, and increases in productivity that are closely linked to increases in knowledge in various forms. Increases in the capital stock do not necessarily increase pressure on the environment. Increases in knowledge have no tendency at all to increase pressure on the environment—some forms of technological change increase pressures, and some reduce it. The challenge is to increase output of goods and services that increase welfare without degrading the environment and other value. Different policies and different patterns of growth can give us different trade-offs between value of output of goods and services and pressure on the environment.

Economic growth from increases in the labour force (from increases in population) are likely to place pressure on the environment. Rising living standards from economic growth provide the proven path to elimination of population growth (more detail in answer to next question).

As countries become richer, political communities tend to value environmental amenity more highly. Despite Tokyo being much richer now than 50 years ago, the Tokyo environment is much better now. Ditto Beijing compared with a decade ago. On climate, the economic and technological means are available to reconcile high incomes and welfare with zero net emissions.

Output increases in developed countries come mainly through higher productivity. There is no reason to expect total factor productivity growth to damage the environment. As we get richer, many of the ways we spend our money do not necessarily involve significantly increased emissions even with current technologies—reading, education, health services, concerts, sporting events, opera, theatre. More and better medical services from better scientific knowledge, for example, are achieved without any increase in pressure on the environment. Even AI and the internet with their voracious use of energy need not increase greenhouse gas emissions, so long as we supply them with renewable energy (which we can now do at lower cost in most places than through use of coal and gas). Sound policy—for example a carbon price—can influence capital investment and technological improvement in directions that cause economic growth to come with lower and eventually zero emissions.

For developing countries, raising living standards generally involves increased use of materials—steel, aluminium, building materials, fabrics. These products, and others, can be produced with zero emissions. Population increase is greater in developing countries and has a heavier environmental footprint. I discuss that in the last answer.

The Partha Dasgupta Review to the UK government said that past decades of human prosperity have taken a “devastating” ecological toll, and it highlights estimates that suggest we would need 1.6 Earths to maintain humanity's current way of life. GDP is no longer fit for purpose, he says, when it comes to judging the economic health of nations. He contends GDP is “based on a faulty application of economics” that does not include “depreciation of assets” such as the degradation of the biosphere. Do you agree?

I agree with Dasgupta that exclusive use of GDP without deducting depreciation of environmental assets to measure economic welfare is “based on faulty application of economics”.

Dumb question: is endless growth, GDP and rising standards of living, compatible with saving the planet, not just from climate change that will make human life much more difficult, but from other environmental degradations?

Rising living standards need to involve no increase in pressure on the environment. Indeed, rising living standards are likely to increase political will to use available technological and economic means to reduce environmental damage.

Rising living standards are essential to reducing the main source of increasing human pressure on the environment: population growth. Fertility is far below replacement level in all high-income and most middle-income countries. It is far below replacement level in China. It is now, and only recently after a period of stronger incomes growth, well below replacement levels in India. China and India are the two most populous countries. The fourth most populous, after the US as third, Indonesia, has recently moved to fertility below replacement level. Bangladesh was the fifth most populous country until recently. Its fertility is now at replacement levels after a long period of incomes growth—and as a result Bangladesh has ceded fifth place in population to Pakistan with its slower economic growth.

Fertility remains well above replacement level in low-income countries. Most low-income people and therefore people in countries with high fertility and population growth now live in sub-Saharan Africa and the island arc around northern Australia. These regions may represent a majority of young humans later this century. The most likely way to reduce fertility in the parts of the world which are now experiencing high population growth is through economic growth and rising living standards. Economic growth and rising living standards in low-income countries can be reconciled with falling emissions through sound policy encouraged by developed countries’ support, and transfers of knowledge and capital from developed countries.