How do climate scientists maintain their hope in a warming world?​on January 31, 2025 at 7:00 pm

At the Paris Climate Accord, countries agreed to try to limit global temperatures to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, to avoid the most severe effects of warming.

Atmospheric scientist Dr Martin Jucker compared the experience of climate scientists to that of doctors who every day saw people in misery, “but have to stay positive as well”.

“It’s like there is a certain disconnect, a certain emotional disconnect,” he said.

“So one part of it, for me, is a certain disconnect in just having the scientific interest in the matter. And the other thing is just believing in the fact that it’ll still turn out OK.”

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Humans are hardwired to have hope, which helps us maintain a sense of purpose. But for climate researcher Dr Simon Bradshaw, it’s the other way around: purpose leads to hope.

“I know I’m not the first to say this, but when we start working with our local community, when we start taking little steps in our own lives, when we see the positive impact of any efforts we make to be part of the solution, then that’s what creates hope, and that’s what creates a virtuous cycle.”

Dr Kimberley Reid, a climate science research fellow at the University of Melbourne, said much of the media’s reporting on climate was “biased towards the negative stories”.

“I find if you look for some of the more positive stories, it does lift you up from the ground a bit and make you feel a little bit less depressed,” she said.

“For example, the re-election of Donald Trump is obviously not great for climate change. But in the first quarter of 2024, the private investment into clean energy and electric vehicles by people in the US was a record-breaking $71 billion, which was about 40 per cent higher than in the first quarter of 2023.

“Even if the president denies the reality of climate change, I think a lot of private citizens are still getting on with the job of transitioning to renewable energy.”

Ashcroft said: “I think the narratives around dystopian futures don’t serve a promotion of action.”

The experts all identified the transition to renewables as a cause for hope.

King said: “I’m confident that, with so much energy being put into this by so many people to try to address this problem, we will be able to get towards net zero [emissions], later this century.”

Emeritus Professor Lesley Hughes, a co-author of the fourth and fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments, which warned sea levels could rise by 1.1 metres by 2100, now believes that assessment was almost certainly too conservative.

“I get asked this question a lot, whether I’m optimistic about the future,” Hughes said.

“What is the alternative? If you get too down about it, and you give up, if we all give up, then we’re truly lost. So I often say to people, ‘I don’t think of hope as an emotion any more. I think of it as a strategy, because you have to have hope and optimism for the future, or you don’t do anything’.”

Former BP Australasia executive turned Climate Council councillor Greg Bourne said he was confident the world’s efforts to limit the effects of climate change would continue unabated, despite Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and to “drill, baby, drill”.

“Tackling climate change is so far beyond any one election, whether it be in Australia, Europe or America,” Bourne said.

“This is a very, very long run and an incredibly important race, as it were, to keep below 1.5 or is it 1.6 degrees now. And then you look at where the capital is flowing, and it is basically flowing to renewable energy.”