We are at a two-fold tipping point on climate change – the point at which afterwards there is no return. The two tipping points are, first, for action to ameliorate climate change, and second, to report on it with credibility.

You could argue the final year at which action to prevent serious damage from climate change can occur without horrendous upheaval to our economy and society is 2020. If Trump is re-elected the likelihood of the USA doing anything to reduce emissions will be gone – lost amid the demented ramblings of an insecure sociopath whose main concern will be to stay out of jail and to hide his insecurity with insane blather about how great he thinks he is and truly weird tweets mentioning his daughter.

For Australia perhaps the tipping point is already passed.

After this year’s election we remain saddled for three years with a federal government laden with climate-change deniers and charlatans who may or may not accept the science, but who sure as heck accept the political opportunity from scaring people about pursing action.

This is what the ALP is currently wrestling with. Yes, at a minimum we need to reduce emissions by 45% below 2005 levels, but to do that in eight years will require a much more severe effort than it would have had the ALP been able to enact policies now.

So you can see some political reasoning for the ALP to think it is better to focus on reducing emissions to net zero by 2050 rather than the 45% cut by 2030. Because, as was made clear again this year, the LNP is more than willing to smash the fear button during an election.

It is why the prime minister’s committed the most contemptible kind of hypocrisy when he suggested in his speech at the UN this week that “we must respect and harness the passion and aspiration of our younger generations, we must guard against others who would seek to compound or, worse, facelessly exploit their anxiety for their own agendas”.

Someone should introduce Scott Morrison to the disingenuous fear monger who during the election campaign went around the country telling everyone that “Bill Shorten wants to end the weekend”.

If this year’s election has shown us anything there is no advantage at all from being the only major party with an emissions policy that supports the science.

We spent six weeks with far too many journalists losing their minds trying to discover a middle ground between logic and lies, and so ended up arguing the big issue on climate change was the cost of the ALP’s policy on the economy, rather than the manifestly inadequate cuts being proposed by the LNP.

And that brings us to the second tipping point.

Scott Morrison’s meeting Donald Trump truly was the apprentice genuflecting to the master. Morrison has demonstrated a Trumpesque ability to fudge, mislead and obfuscate, and to also suggest things are the opposite of reality.

With Trump there is no ulterior motive – his total lack of introspection combined with total ignorance leads him to lie and believe his own reality; for Morrison however the application is much more tactical.

So we saw him telling journalists that the argument on climate change has been “settled in Australian politics” – that there is agreement on the action: “The action that meets, that we meet our 2020 targets and we meet our 2030 targets. And that we have a $3 billion climate solutions fund, a policy for meeting our 2030 emissions reduction targets.”

What bullshit.

Those targets themselves are pathetic – a climate-change pea and thimble trick involving dodgy accounting of land-use and carry-over credits. Even with this the targets are well below what is argued as needed by scientists. If we excluded land use our emissions would have risen 7% above 2005 levels, rather than fallen by 11%.

Our government is so useless, they are essentially cheating in order to underperform.

As for that $3bn climate solutions fund: does any sentient being truly believe $3bn over 10 years is enough to adequately reduce emissions?

The government brings in $505bn a year in revenue, so spending less than half a percent of that each year over 10 years will do the trick?

If that were so then we would not be worrying about climate change – every nation in the world would have signed that pitifully small cheque and gone on their merry way.

And so we are at a tipping point.

The prime minister of this country is now suggesting the media are lying about the government’s climate change efforts.

He told reporters in New York last week, “See what I’ve found in engaging with neighbours, and even here, is often times the criticisms that have been made about Australia are completely false and they’re completely misleading and people have had a prejudiced view about what Australia is actually doing. They get their information now, where do they get their information from? Who knows? Maybe they read it, maybe they read it. But from what’s come out in the media and other things like this, how they get their information…”

I don’t know about the prime minister, but I get my information from the Department of the Environment and Energy, which shows that annual emissions have risen every quarter since the government introduced its “emissions reduction fund”.

The transformation into Ocker Trump (“Who knows? Maybe they read it, maybe they read it”) is now so obvious that no journalist or media company can miss it.

The tipping point is here.

After looking across the Pacific and raising eyebrows at how the US media has covered Trump, now Australian journalists have our chance to demonstrate how they would do it.

The tipping point is here. Falter now and there is no going back – not only for our climate, but also the credibility of journalists and our media organisations.