Human-induced climate change is happening faster than officially acknowledged. Extreme events intensify, particularly in Australia, Asia and the Pacific. Victoria and Tasmania are ablaze again. Queensland needs a decade to recover from recent floods. Much of south-east Australia has become a frying pan, curtailing human activity.

The economic and social cost is massive – as Reserve Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle warned us this week – but too many of our leaders refuse absolutely to acknowledge climate change as the cause.

This major ice sheet in west Antarctica is melting. Its collapse is predicted to raise global sea level by up to a metre. Credit:NASA

Given the overwhelming evidence and repeated warnings of the dangers we face, even as a former oil, gas and coal industry executive I find it incomprehensible that proposals for new fossil fuel projects proliferate, encouraged by government and opposition alike: Adani’s Carmichael, Glencore’s Wandoan, Kepco’s Bylong, Whitehaven’s Maules Creek, Shenhua’s Watermark, along with 20 other NSW coal projects, Shell’s CSG and LNG expansion, Northern Territory and West Australian fracking, Statoil in the Great Australian Bight, HELE coal-fired power stations ... the list goes on.

These projects are crimes against humanity. Fossil fuel investment must stop, now. As the cost of three decades of climate denial mount, the incumbency becomes evermore hysterical, lying and dissembling to avoid accountability – “we will meet our climate obligations at a canter”.