Have climate change predictions matched reality?

For decades, scientists have warned that unchecked global warming could bring climate extremes such as severe droughts, flash floods and rising sea levels. We talk to three climate change experts on how predictions of a changing world are holding up against the reality we’re living through. 

Featuring Christopher White, head of the Centre for Water, Environment, Sustainability and Public Health at the University of Strathclyde in the UK, Victor Ongoma Assistant Professor, at Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique in Morocco, and Kewei Lyu a postdoctoral researcher in ocean and climate at CSIRO in Australia.

And Justin Bergman, deputy politics editor at The Conversation in Melbourne, Australia, recommends some recent analysis of the fallout from the recent AUKUS defence pact.

The Conversation Weekly is produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can sign up to The Conversation’s free daily email here. Full credits for this episode available here.

Further reading

• How summer 2021 has changed our understanding of extreme weather, by Christopher J White, University of Strathclyde 
• Insights for African countries from the latest climate change projections, by Victor Ongoma, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique
• Pinpointing the role of climate change in every storm is impossible – and a luxury most countries can’t afford, by Friederike Otto, University of Oxford and Luke Harrington, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
• IPCC says Earth will reach temperature rise of about 1.5℃ in around a decade. But limiting any global warming is what matters most, by Michael Grose and Pep Canadell at CSIRO; and Malte Meinshausen and Zebedee Nicholls, The University of Melbourne
• C'est fini: can the Australia-France relationship be salvaged after scrapping the sub deal?, by Romain Fathi, Flinders University and Claire Rioult, Monash University
• After AUKUS, Russia sees a potential threat — and an opportunity to market its own submarines, by Alexey D Muraviev, Curtin University