Climate Change State of Play 2025: in a rapidly warming world prediction of risk levels and consequences are raising red flags for the planet and humanity

 

Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, News:

IFoA research included in key climate-risk reports for global finance ministers

17 June 2025

The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries has provided a summary of recent climate-related risk research which has been included in reports sent to global finance ministers. These reports were provided ahead of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG) 2025 Spring Meetings in late April.

IFoA Fellows and sustainability risk actuaries Sandy Trust and Georgi Bedenham sit on the Technical Advisory Group set up to advise the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action. This coalition is supported by the IMF and WBG and brings together fiscal and economic policymakers from 97 countries.

The series of IFoA research reports started in 2022 with ‘Climate Emergency – tipping the odds in our favour: A climate change policy briefing for COP27’. In 2023, we released ‘Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios – a warning for financial services’. This was followed in 2024 with ‘ClimateScorpion – the sting is in the tail’. Although coming too late for the IMF/WBG spring meeting briefings to finance ministers, the latest in the series was released in January 2025 entitled ‘Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature’.

Sandy Trust, IFoA Council member and IFoA Climate Risk series lead author, said:

“There is an urgent need for finance ministries to include realistic and current climate assessments risk into their economic analysis and modelling approaches. Global warming has accelerated, and the 12-month average temperature is now above the 1.5°C goal. This is driving increasingly severe impacts – fires, floods, heat, and droughts – which are coming sooner than expected, are worse than expected and outside model projections. Climate change is fast becoming a national security issue with food, water and heat stresses impacting populations.

“Finance ministries have to support important government decisions on prioritisation of climate change action. We urge ministers to adopt a set of principles to develop realistic economic assessments of climate impacts and opportunities. Our contribution to the reports provided ahead of the IMF and World Bank meetings are designed to draw attention to the limitations of first generation climate risk models which understate risks and provide some very specific recommendations to better assess the economic impact of climate change.”

Kartina Tahir Thomson, IFoA President, said: 

“Climate change is a risk management issue on a global scale. If we want to avoid severe disruption to the economy and our global society, we need to take action to reduce emissions, limit warming, mitigate the extent of future climate risks and adapt to those we cannot avoid.

“It is great to see this IFoA research being delivered direct to policymakers in over 90 countries. Given their skills and expertise in assessing long-term risk, actuaries are well placed to help draw attention to these climate risk challenges and to offer solutions.”

The report was included in the Coalition of Finance Ministers’ for Climate Action’s Helsinki Principle 4 initiative ‘Economic Analysis for Green and Resilient Transitions’. The IFoA’s contribution was part of its newly published Compendium of Practice.

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Excerpt from The urgent need for Ministries of Finance to factor systemic climate risk into their economic analysis and modeling approaches and principles for doing so: a view from the insurance and pensions industry, June 2025:

Key findings—realistic economic analysis to support Ministry of Finance decisions

1. Ministries of Finance have to support important government decisions on the prioritization of climate change, e.g., how much effort to expend on countering it, relative to the effort that must be spent on other issues. They use integrated assessment models (IAMs) to assess economic implications of climate change risks and opportunities, including policy decisions on incentives to accelerate the transition and how to build resilience into societies to withstand anticipated climate impacts.

2. However, IAMs have significant limitations, meaning they can understate both the climate risks and the economic opportunities arising from the energy transition. Basing policy decisions on these models may lead to inadequate adaptation, loss of resilience, and missed economic opportunities.

3. To address these limitations, MoFs should adopt a set of principles to develop realistic economic assessments of climate impacts and opportunities, including adopting a precautionary-principle approach, developing risk management capacity, and providing decision-makers with better information. 

4. MoFs should lead the development of National Transition Plans (NTPs)—strategic pan economy plans that direct private sector action around financing, incentivizing, coordinating, and enabling the transition. NTPs should include requirements for realistic risk assessment to support policy decisions to accelerate mitigation and build resilient infrastructure.

5. The backdrop to this analysis is that global warming has accelerated, and the 12-month average temperature is now above the 1.5°C goal. Record high temperatures are occurring continuously across the globe, with multiple locations now experiencing 40°C–50°C peaks. Polar regions are experiencing temperatures 30°C–40°C higher than normal. This trend will likely continue as emissions are ongoing and other factors, such as forest fires, ice loss, and loss of aerosol cooling, are driving warming.

6. This trend is having increasingly severe impacts—fires, floods, heat, and droughts. Climate change is becoming a national security issue, with food, water, and heat stresses impacting populations. If it goes unchecked, then mass mortality, involuntary mass migration events and/or severe GDP contraction are likely.

7. But warming above 1.5°C is extremely risky, with a high chance of triggering multiple climate tipping points, such as the collapse of ice sheets, permafrost melt, Amazon dieback, and halting major ocean current circulation. Impacts could be catastrophic, including significant loss of capacity to grow major staple crops, multi-meter sea-level rise, and further acceleration of climate change through the release of greenhouse gases.

In 2022 in its first term the Albanese Labor Government joined the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action (created in 2018-19), as of May 2025 this coalition comprises of 98 members supported by 21 Institutional Partners and 9 Knowledge Partners.

NOTE: The United States of America, Russia, Israel & North Korea are notable absences from the membership list to date.

Additionally in 2022 the Australian Treasury joined the International Platform on Sustainable Finance (launched in 2019).

CLIMATE CHANGE 2025: There is no longer any room left in Australia's national discourse for self-indulgent disbelief, denial or scepticism when it come to anthropogenic global warming

Australia, both as an ancient island continent and a society predicated on a federation of states in a representative democracy, entered 2025 with the following two hundred & fifty-eight year climatic background which every single person needs to seriously consider as they navigate this federal election year and what remains of this decade.

Because the decisions made now will affect if or how our own communities, friendship groups and families will cope — because the Australian and global overarching climate and seasonal weather patterns that we grew & prospered under down the generations are quickly disappearing never to return for millennia.

State of the Climate 2024: Report at a glance, excerpts:

Key points

Australia

> Australia's climate has warmed since national records began in 1910.

> The oceans surrounding Australia have also warmed. Chart of the temperature anomaly relative to the 1961 to 1990 average, in degrees Celsius, from 1910 to 2023, for temperatures over Australia and for sea surface temperatures in the Australian region.

> Australia’s climate has warmed by an average of 1.51 ±0.23 °C since national records began in 1910.

> Sea surface temperatures have increased by an average of 1.08 °C since 1900.

> The warming has led to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events over land and in the oceans.

> In the south-west of Australia there has been a decrease of around 16% in April to October rainfall since 1970. Across the same region, May to July rainfall has seen the largest reduction, by around 20% since 1970.

> In the south-east of Australia, there has been a decrease of around 9% in April to October rainfall since 1994.

> Heavy short-term rainfall events are becoming more intense.

> There has been a decrease in streamflow at most gauges across Australia since 1970.

> There has been an increase in rainfall and streamflow across parts of northern Australia since the 1970s.

> There has been an increase in extreme fire weather, and a longer fire season, across large parts of the country since the 1950s.

> There has been a decrease in the number of tropical cyclones observed in the Australian region since at least 1982.

> Snow depth, snow cover and number of snow days have decreased in alpine regions since the late 1950s.

> Oceans around Australia are becoming more acidic, with changes happening faster in recent decades.

> Sea levels are rising around Australia, including more frequent extreme high levels that increase the risk of inundation and damage to coastal infrastructure and communities.

Anomalies (departures from the mean for the 1961–1990 standard averaging period) in annual mean sea surface temperature, and temperature over land, in the Australian region. Sea surface temperature values (data source: ERSST v5, psl.noaa.gov) are provided for a region around Australia (4–46°S and 94–174°E).

Global

> Concentrations of all major long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to increase. Global annual mean carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations reached 419.2 parts per million (ppm) in 2023 and the CO2 equivalent (CO2-e) of all greenhouse gases reached 524 ppm. These are the highest levels on Earth in at least 2 million years.

> Global fossil fuel CO2 emissions, the principal driver of the growth in CO2 concentrations, are continuing to increase. Overall anthropogenic CO2 emissions, including fossil fuel and land-use change emissions, have levelled off over the last decade after increasing for more than a century prior to the 2010s.

> In 2022 and 2023, the amounts of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), both greenhouse gases, in the atmosphere increased rapidly.

> Globally averaged air temperature at the Earth’s surface has warmed by about 1.2 °C since reliable records began in 1850. Each decade since 1980 has been warmer than the last, with 2011–2020 being around 0.2 °C warmer than 2001–2010. 2023 was the warmest year on record globally.

> The world’s oceans, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, have taken up more than 90% of the extra energy stored by the planet (as heat) arising from enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations.

> The ice sheets and ice shelves of Antarctica and Greenland are losing ice due to a warmer climate, and contributing to global sea level rise.

> There has been an abrupt decrease in Antarctic sea-ice extent since 2015, after a small increase over the period from 1979 to 2014.

> Around half of all CO2 emissions from human activities are absorbed by land and ocean sinks, which act to slow the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2.

> Global mean sea levels have risen by over 22 cm since 1900; half of this has occurred since 1970.

Future

In the coming decades, Australia will experience ongoing changes to its weather and climate. The changes are projected to include:

> Continued increase in air temperatures, with more heat extremes and fewer cold extremes.

> Continued decrease, on average, in cool season rainfall across many regions of southern and eastern Australia, which will likely lead to more time in drought.

> More intense short-duration heavy rainfall events even in regions where the average rainfall decreases or stays the same.

> Continued increase in the number of dangerous fire weather days and a longer fire season for much of southern and eastern Australia.

> Further sea level rise and continued warming and acidification of the oceans around Australia.

> Increased and longer-lasting marine heatwaves that will affect marine environments such as kelp forests and increase the likelihood of more frequent and severe bleaching events in coral reefs around Australia, including the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef.

> Fewer tropical cyclones, but with higher intensity on average, and greater impacts when they occur through higher rain rates and higher sea level.

> Reduced average snow depth in alpine regions, but with variations from year to year.

Changes in weather systems and climate influences

Australia’s weather systems are changing. Southern Australia receives much of its rainfall during the cooler months of the year from low-pressure systems and cold fronts to the south of the subtropical high-pressure ridge. During recent decades, these systems have become less common over southern Australia, and are less likely to produce rainfall when they do occur, contributing to declines in cool season rainfall. Mean sea level atmospheric pressure is increasing over Australia, and there has been an increase in the number of high-pressure systems over southern Australia, which bring dry, clear weather and little rainfall. This increase in atmospheric pressure across southern latitudes is a response to climate change.

There is large variability in the frequency of individual weather systems between individual months and years. Many of these trends are consistent with simulations from climate models, which demonstrate that increased greenhouse gas levels lead to fewer low-pressure systems in southern Australia and a stronger subtropical ridge, but an increase in the intensity of heavy rainfall, including from thunderstorms.

Australia’s climate is also influenced from year to year by various broadscale climate influences, such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). SAM shows a sustained trend towards more positive conditions from 1950 to the present day, particularly in summer.

The level of ENSO activity over the past 50 years is higher, with more significant El Niño and La Niña events than in the years between 1920 and 1970. However, there is no clear indication that recent activity levels are outside the long-term range of variability, with evidence of high levels of ENSO activity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is low confidence in the long-term trends in the IOD, particularly prior to the 1960s, although paleoclimate data indicate that the recent frequency of strong positive IOD events is high in the context of multi-century variability.

The full report can be read & downloaded as a pdf at

http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/

CLIMATE CHANGE 2025: when the weather gods wake up on the wrong side of the atmospheric bed

ECHO, 14 January 2025, p1:

Warnings of the possibility of thunderstorms occurring across New South Wales began to build on the morning of Wednesday,15 January 2025 and by the afternoon these warnings began to increase, by way of a mix BoM bulletins, broadcast news and social media.

Stay safe Sydney.. In fact NSW.. massive storm front smashing from Scone to Ulladulla on its way east .. keep your pets inside! ⛈️ 🙈🐾🐾 pic.twitter.com/StgmkN6D12

— Caroline (@CaroSearcc) January 15, 2025

On the morning of Thursday 16 January many New South Wales communities woke to either hear the news of severe storms elsewhere across the state or to survey by light of day the damage caused by the violent weather they had just experienced.

ABC News, 16 January 2025:

Severe storms battered large parts of the state overnight.

The state emergency service has received more than 2,250 requests for help in the past 24 hours, and one man in his 80s died in Cowra when a tree fell on his car.

100,000 homes remain without power on the Ausgrid network, which encompasses Sydney and the Hunter Valley.

NSW SES has received more than 2,250 calls for assistance and responded to more than 1,800 incidents as severe weather battered the state overnight.

Severe thunderstorm cells hit across Sydney and parts of the state's north-east, north-west and central west Thursday morning, including Newcastle and Wollongong.

More than 140,000 homes have been without power at some point in the last 24 hours.

A home at Mudgee in the central west was completely destroyed by a fire, after a downed power pole landed on the property.....

In Dubbo, fire crews were called to Eden Park where it's believed lightning struck a tree near a leaking gas pipe.

The area was closed for an hour while fire crews managed to bring the blaze under control, and the power company isolated the gas leak.

Cheryl Clydsdale is a farmer at Rouchel in the Upper Hunter and said the storm demolished a hay shed at her property....

Elsewhere in the Hunter, a roof at Cessnock High School was torn off, as well as a roof at the NSW Port Authority at Honeysuckle in Newcastle....

Line of storms

Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior meteorologist Christie Johnson said the wild weather was produced by a cold front that triggered a "massive line of storms".

"At one stage we basically had a line of storms extending from almost the Queensland border down to Tasmania," she said.

"We did see some super cells, those super-strong thunderstorms and they did develop along the line.

"Sometimes they can actually suck the energy out of the storms around them ... so you can get one area that is really badly hit, and then just down the road you get maybe just a normal thunderstorm coming over."

Wind gusts of 120 kilometres per hour were recorded at Williamtown, north of Newcastle, but gusts in excess of 100kph were recorded in areas scattered across the state including Kurnell (117kph) Scone, Dubbo and Cowra (107kph), Wagga Wagga (106kph) and Tamworth (102kph).

Then heaviest rain fell at Eurobodalla, on the south coast, where 127mm was recorded in the 24 hours to 9am.

"About 57mm of that fell in about half an hour, and about 85 in an hour," Ms Johnson said.....

Read the full article here.

A massive storm went over Sydney last night. Spent a few hours capturing these bad boys #SydneyStorm

*No retouching or editing on any of these. pic.twitter.com/tMiefV9XRb

— Jarv (@JarvFromOz) January 16, 2025

The warnings did not stop coming on Thursday.....

⛈️Thunderstorm FORECAST for TODAY (16/1): Storms possible over north-east #NSW.

SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS possible (🟡) in the far north-east & likely (🔴) over the #NorthernRivers. Risk of damaging winds, large hail & heavy rainfall/flash flooding.

Warnings: https://t.co/Ss766eSCrL pic.twitter.com/90L3DBQtqk

— Bureau of Meteorology, New South Wales (@BOM_NSW) January 16, 2025

Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) as of 2:22am 17 January 2025:

Warnings current:

• Marine Wind Warning Summary for New South Wales,

• Severe Weather Warning for Mid North Coast and parts of Hunter, Metropolitan, Northern Tablelands and North West Slopes and Plains Forecast Districts.,

• Coastal Hazard Warning for parts of Mid North Coast, Hunter, Metropolitan and Illawarra Forecast Districts.,

• Hazardous Surf Warning for New South Wales,

• Warning to Sheep Graziers for Mid North Coast, Hunter, Northern Tablelands, Illawarra, Central Tablelands, Southern Tablelands, Snowy Mountains and Australian Capital Territory forecast districts,

• Flood Watch for parts of the Northern Rivers, Mid North Coast, Hunter and Central Coast,

• Initial Minor Flood Warning for the Cooks River,

• Final Flood Warning for the Weir River (QLD).

This afternoon. pic.twitter.com/60OxTCwbED

— Nick Raschke (@R101Nick) January 16, 2025

The Hunter Coast, NSW Mid-North Coast, 16 January 2025

VIDEO: Nick Raschke, Newcastle

 

CLIMATE CRISIS STATE OF PLAY 2025: An Open Letter to Protect Future Generations which includes a demand for federal mandated duty of care legislation protecting the young

Prominent Voices Unite to Demand a Climate Duty of Care Bill, 11 January 2025:

An Open Letter to Protect Future Generations

Addressed to:

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister

Tanya Plibersek, Minister for the Environment and Water

Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change

Anne Aly, Minister for Youth

Dear Prime Minister and Ministers,

2024 is officially the hottest year on record. A child turning ten years old this year has lived through the ten hottest years on record. How many more records will be broken in this child’s lifetime? How many more broken records will future generations witness?

Young people are this country’s future. We are Australia’s future leaders, future innovators, future changemakers. We will soon inherit the world our leaders leave us, and we will be charged with taking it forward, with the responsibility of addressing the challenges and seizing the opportunities that lie ahead of us.

We are waking up every day to news headlines of climate-related emergencies such as shattered temperature records, bushfires, floods, and heat waves impacting new corners of the Earth. Climate catastrophe is no longer an abstract concept or a far off possibility - we are watching it take hold of the world we love, the world we will soon be required to create our lives within, the world we must soon lead.

We know that climate change will have a disproportionate impact on current and future generations, as the world continues to warm and climate disaster increases in frequency and severity. And yet, there is no Australian domestic legislation that mandates the protection of the health and wellbeing of young people in the face of climate change.

The responsibility to legislate this duty lies squarely with the Federal Parliament. The case of Sharma v Minister for the Environment, in which eight Australian children argued that the government owes Australian children a duty to take reasonable care to protect them from climate change harm, found that this was a matter unsuitable for judicial determination. This task is now yours.

Your actions and policies right now are shaping what our world will look like. The futures of the young people of today and tomorrow are being crafted by your decisions right now.

We call on you to acknowledge your duty of care to us. We call on you to ensure that the decisions you make today are made with our health and wellbeing at the forefront of your minds, and that this is guaranteed by law.

Young people deserve nothing less than a duty of care in the face of climate change.

Signed,

Anjali Sharma, Jess Travers-Wolf, Hannah Vardy, Daisy Jeffrey

Presented with the support of over 80 prominent persons, politicians and organisations.

Near chlamydia-free, genetically diverse & unique Koala community found in Fernbrook area of northern New South Wales

 

Yahoo! News, 9 December 2024:

Australian wildlife researchers have made an incredibly rare discovery in the bush that they've branded "such an exciting result" for koala conservation.

Thanks to assistance from a "poo-sniffing English springer spaniel" named Max, a new community of koalas at Fernbrook, inland of Coffs Harbour, has been found that appear to be both chlamydia free and genetically different — an "increasingly rare" feat in NSW......

"More surveys need to be done, but it appears these koalas at Fernbrook are very special. They can still breed and produce future generations with higher climate resilience."

.....

Why is it so significant to find both chlamydia-free and genetically diverse koalas in NSW?

Surveys by Max and the team from Canines for Wildlife showed that the broader koala population in Coffs Harbour and Bellingen has low levels of chlamydia and high genetic diversity overall.

Genetic diversity enhances a population's ability to resist diseases and in koalas, a lack of it makes them more susceptible to infections.

Urban development, agriculture, and deforestation have broken up koala habitats into smaller, scattered patches, limiting their ability to travel and find unrelated mates. Koalas often remain in isolated areas, leading to a reduced genetic pool and increased inbreeding over generations. The Fernbrook results "have conservationists celebrating" and calling for a "halt to logging in state forests" that contain vital koala food and habitat trees. While the group of 10 koalas in Fernbrook are on private properties and are not threatened by logging — the wider population around Coffs Harbour is.

Canines for Wildlife were recruited to survey for koalas across 115 sites in the Coffs Harbour and Bellingen areas, ranging from coastal regions to the Dorrigo Plateau nearly 1,000 metres above sea level.

"We learned this population is healthy, has high genetic diversity and relatively low levels of chlamydia. So this is a really important population. If we’re going to save koalas we need to wrap healthy populations like this in cotton wool and protect them," Blanch said.

"It beggars belief that the tree homes of koalas continue to be knocked down and destroyed. Logging should stop right now in the area being assessed for the Great Koala National Park and in plantations where koalas live."

What's next?

A total of 109 poo samples were collected in 2022-2023 and sent for genetic testing at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Lynn Baker from Canines for Wildlife said this new colony must be protected.

"For a koala researcher this is such an exciting result," she said. "We knew the koalas at Fernbrook looked different. They are a lot furrier and darker in colour than their compatriots on the coast. They look like cold weather koalas.

"But if this is a genetically different and a chlamydia-free group then it’s important that they are protected. There are not many areas left in NSW that have distinct groups of [healthy] koalas.

"The burning question is are these koalas isolated to the habitat on these properties or are they connected to other chlamydia-free koalas that we haven’t sampled yet?"

Canines for Wildlife is hoping to do further surveys in the areas surrounding Fernbrook to help answer the question.

Since 2001, koala numbers in the state have decreased by 33 per cent to 61 per cent, driven by habitat destruction, climate change, disease, and urbanisation. The devastating 2019–2020 bushfires alone killed at least 6,400 koalas.

Read the full article at https://au.news.yahoo.com/incredibly-rare-discovery-in-aussie-bush-by-sniffer-dog-like-striking-gold-040624856.html

Thousands of people answered the call of Rising Tide and successfully protested at Newcastle coal port in New South Wales over the course of four days

 

After the Supreme Court set aside a Minns Government decision to cut off access to Newcastle Harbour in an effort to prevent a four-day climate protest, NSW Police were left trying to herd cats on port waters for most of Sunday, 24 November 2024. 

The result was that thousands of people of all ages answered Rising Tide's call for a peaceful protest at what is said to be the world's largest coal port and shipping was disrupted as planned.

Here's how the Newcastle Protestival went down from the perspective of police, protestors and media.

The Canberra Times, 24 November 2024

🚨 Breaking 🚨 Protestors declare victory blocking Newcastle Coal Port. Arrests made. pic.twitter.com/mtFWjg1pL9

— RisingTideAustralia (@RisingTideAus) November 24, 2024

NSW Police News

Over 100 people arrested in Port of Newcastle

Sunday, 24 November 2024 12:47:08 PM

Police have arrested over 100 people as a police operation continues in the Port of Newcastle.

Just after 10am today (Sunday 24 November 2024), a large group of people entered a shipping channel and interfered with the movement of vessels.

138 people have now been arrested after refusing to comply with a direction to move away from the channel.

The police operation is ongoing.

For their own safety and that of the other users of the port, police request that people refrain from entering the harbour with the intention to obstruct other users of the port. We also encourage all participants to follow the directions of police.

The community is reminded that under NSW legislation, the safe passage of vessels is protected. Unlawful activity may result in fines or imprisonment.

The NSW Police Force will adopt a zero-tolerance approach to actions which threaten public safety and the safe passage of vessels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMNwXVEeiRY

Charges laid as police operation continues - Port of Newcastle

Sunday, 24 November 2024 06:20:26 PM

170 people have been arrested this weekend over the disruption of a major facility and failure to comply with marine safety directions in the Port of Newcastle.

Yesterday (Saturday 23 November 2024), two men and a woman were charged with not comply with direction by authorised officer relating to safety.

Just after 10am today (Sunday 24 November 2024), a large group of people entered the shipping channel and presented serious safety risks to themselves and others, causing significant disruptions to the operation of the harbour.

156 adults and 14 youths have now been charged in total - 138 with disruption of a major facility, and 32 with not comply with direction by authorised officer relating to safety. Two were refused bail to appear at Newcastle Local Court tomorrow (Monday 24 November 2024).

34 people were required to be retrieved from the water during arrests, ten people required assistance from police to return to shore, and one police officer suffered a fractured ankle.

Unrelated to activities in the water, there were numerous traffic infringements issued, and a further five charges were laid.

Despite disruptions, the harbour remains open and continues to operate with 31 shipping movements over the weekend since Friday (22 November 2024).

The police operation is ongoing.

The NSW Police Force recognises and supports the rights of individuals and groups to exercise their rights of free speech and peaceful assembly; however, the priority for NSW Police is always the safety of the wider community and there will be zero tolerance for illegal and dangerous behaviour.

Andrew George, 35, from the Lismore area in the Northern Rivers region was charged with two offences, including seriously disrupting a major facility and operating a vessel as to interfere with others use of waters, before being released on bail.

ECHO, 25 November 2024:

Police minister condemns protesters

Minister for Police Yasmin Catley has released a statement on behalf of the government thanking police for protecting public safety and condemning arrested protesters.

Minister Catley has described as reckless the behaviour of those she says think it ‘acceptable to waste critical policing resources and endanger officers with self-serving stunts’ and ‘irresponsible theatrics’.

GRAPHICS: @RisingTideAus