In their song Time, Pink Floyd sing: "Then one day you find that 10 years have got behind you / no one told you when to run / you missed the starting gun." It might be said that the starting gun was fired by Ross Garnaut, who 10 years ago today delivered the Garnaut Climate Change Review for the Rudd government.

"The weight of scientific evidence tells us that Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change," warned Professor Garnaut, the federal government's climate change adviser. "The risk can be substantially reduced by strong, effective and early action by all major economies. Australia will need to play its full proportionate part in global action."

So where are we now? Well, 16 of the 17 warmest years the planet has had have occurred in this century. And in Australia, a sorry political saga has played out. Energy policy has chewed up our prime ministers and spat them out. They at various times talked a grand game while acting meek; showed fatal indecision; played hardball politics. All were overwhelmed and all met the same fate.

While the past 10 years have seen much time and energy wasted by politicians, citizens have got on board, whether it be with "small" issues such as banning plastic straws and single-use bags, or installing solar panels. Professor Garnaut's review was cautious on the price of solar panels, modelling a 3 per cent annual reduction in their cost. Instead, solar panels are 85 per cent cheaper than a decade ago.

But change cannot be driven solely from the bottom up. Australia's greenhouse gas emissions have been trending higher for about four years. While Prime Minister Scott Morrison has boasted of Australia meeting its 2020 emissions reduction target "in a canter" (with the 2030 target looking good too), on Friday the Environment Department reported that Australia's greenhouse gas emissions reached their highest levels on a quarterly basis since 2010, led by a surge in gas production.