On 21 June, Prof Tony Haymet spoke to Nick Bryant on the ABC Radio National Saturday Extra program about climate change and AI.

Interviewer (Nick Bryant): With so much in happening in world affairs it’s been easy to downplay two of the mega stories of 2025. The first is the worsening problem of global warming. The second is the advances being made in AI. But both pose civilizational threats; both have significant impacts on our day-to-day lives. 

They are two topics in the realm of Australia's Chief Scientist, Professor Tony Haymet, who will be delivering a speech this week at a conference in Cairns attended by some of the world's leading climate and ocean researchers. 

It comes as 60 top scientists have warned that the world could have only three years left to stop warming reaching 1.5 centigrade above pre-industrial levels. Professor Haymet, thanks so much for joining us on Saturday Extra.

Prof Haymet: Good morning, Nick. Pleasure to be here.

Nick Bryant: First of all, to that report that the Earth could breach the symbolic 1.5 centigrade warming limit in as little as three years. I mean, it sounds very worrying. How alarmed should we be?

Prof Haymet: Oh, look, since 1965, Nick, when President Johnson got a report from his scientists about the impact of CO2 on planet Earth, we've known that we were heading for a tough spot. And now in Australia, for example, we're finding the economic impact of climate change is really starting to bite. The report you're talking about, I think is the one from the Priestley Centre from the University of Leeds. And they've used this rubric of carbon budget – how many more tonnes of CO2 can we emit into the atmosphere and still have a chance of staying below the 1.5 degree warming limit that people agreed to in Paris. So, look, it's an effective way of portraying just what a tough situation we're in. But it's not a surprise, it's one we've been building to since 1965.

Nick Bryant: And this comes as countries have continued to burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas and shot down carbon-rich forests, leaving that international goal in peril. It's tempting to call this report a wake up call, but do you think these reports really have much cut-through anymore? Have they lost their capacity to shock? Have they lost their capacity to galvanise?

Prof Haymet: Well, Thursday was an interesting day, the day that this Priestley Centre report was released, because our very own Australian Climate Change Authority released a report called Home Safe on the same day, which I encourage your listeners to look at. And that's a report that focuses on the economic impact on Australia and in particular on Australian homeowners. And it's quite disturbing to find that 652,000 properties, homeowners, around Australia are considered at-risk from one or more climate hazards and where insurance is considered unaffordable or unavailable. So, you know, the days when we were worried about climate change coming at us are long gone. And what we're living through is the times of the economic impact of having CO2 and methane in our atmosphere.

Nick Bryant: You're attending this conference in Cairns later this week. A gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, a place that really concentrates the mind. What's your message going to be?

Prof Haymet: Oh, well, I'm going to talk about two things. The incredible amount of heat that's gone into the oceans all over the globe, but especially around Australia. So, as your listeners probably know, 93% of the human induced heat has gone into the ocean, and in a way, thank heavens, it has, otherwise our temperatures would be hotter than they are. 

But of course, that heat has a lot of impacts on the world and in particular on Australia. On our reefs, our fisheries, our farms, the fact that with the hot water and the hot atmosphere, more water can be contained in the atmosphere, and we see that water coming out of the atmosphere as very powerful and strong rainstorms. So, Australia is one of the countries where the heat in the ocean and the atmosphere is hurting our economy.

Nick Bryant: You've spoken about how you want Australia to become a hero of net zero. It's a nifty phrase, but how hard is it going to be to achieve?

Prof Haymet: Well, I think we're making good progress. It's going to be hard. I mean, it's going to cost money, but by spending money to stop us having the impacts of climate change in the long term, we're going to save. I think this year we spent about $6 billion responding to the effects of climate change. And over time, we'll shift from repairing cities like Lismore and the floods all over Australia and investing in making sure we have preparations in place not to be so affected. 

Sector by sector, we can go through how Australia is going to address getting to net zero. Of course, what we're really trying to do is do our part in the global situation. I mean, most of the pollution that affects Australia comes from the Northern hemisphere. And what the Australian public is looking at is trying to do our part so we can convince our friends in the Northern hemisphere to stop emitting.

Nick Bryant: Let's move on to AI, artificial intelligence. It's a topic that combines both dread and desire. Huge potential for medical breakthroughs, huge potential for job losses as well. What do you say to somebody who's worked in this field trying to make sense of how artificial intelligence will revolutionise our lives?

Prof Haymet: Well, it's moving incredibly quickly and so what I think to myself is, it's coming, we're not going to be able to stop it. And what we have to do in Australia is be ready for it, try to mitigate any bad effects that it's going to have, and try to take full advantage of the wonderful things it can do for us in terms of (for example) medical technology and designing new pharmaceuticals and making our lives better. But really, the message is: it's coming so let's make the best of it.

Nick Bryant: How big a technological shift will this be on a par with the introduction of the internet? Bigger than the introduction of the internet. How significant technologically is this moment?

Prof Haymet: Well, like a lot of people, I'm still trying to get my arms around it, but I think it's going to be huge. I mean, just over the last month there's been announcements of new drugs, new pharmaceuticals designed by AI that have not been able to be addressed by the world's biggest supercomputers, and the sort of physics- and chemistry-based approaches we normally use to try to sort through candidate drugs to the two or three candidates that we actually make and test at great expense, sometimes over 10 or 15 years. So, the fact that AI can reduce that time dramatically and maybe get us better candidates is just stunning. 

I mean, we're now solving problems, you know, for example, the shapes of proteins that were released last year that have been around in chemistry for my entire life. So, I mean, that's just one field. In terms of recognising medical conditions, say from X-rays, or looking for abnormal activities, I think it's going to be huge. 

I think also in terms of security. So, just to take a public example, AI can analyse how everyone, you know, at a global level logs into their bank accounts. And they know how you and I, Nick, tend to log into our bank accounts. AI is very good at picking up anomalies. So, if there's a bad actor out there that has access to an account and logs in every six months at 2am, you know, AI is very expert at picking up anomalies and that's going to lead to increased security.

Nick Bryant: Tony, we've got about 30 seconds left. So, much economic growth in this century is going to be about knowledge and innovation. Just very briefly, do you think enough is being done to prioritise science?

Prof Haymet: Well, I'm always in favour of educating more students. I think Australia started on the journey of bringing the great breadth and diversity of Australians into science. We work very hard on STEM programs for women and other under-represented groups. So, all I can say is we're going to need 100% of our talented workforce.

Nick Bryant: Professor Tony Haymet is Australia's Chief Scientist. Thank you so much for joining us on Saturday Extra.

Prof Haymet: Thanks, Nick.

End