In November 2024, COP29 opened in oil-rich Baku, Azerbaijan. But this year's UN Climate Change Conference launched with uncertainty given the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President and his distain for climate mitigation action. But whatever the future Trump administration will do does not change the fact that the global climate is changing faster than humans, animals and plants can adapt. Extreme warming seen in wildfires, floods, and heat domes threaten people, societies, economies and ecosystems.

However, clean energy from hydro, wind, solar, and geothermal power is already in play with some countries already relying on almost 100 per cent renewable electricity including Norway, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Iceland. Scotland and South Australia have met more than 100 per cent of their electricity needs and sometimes export their surplus. They are shining examples of what can and should be done in forming climate action policies.

 Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels and the transition to clean energy offers millions of jobs. With 2024 declared the hottest year on record, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C is a massive task made harder by every threatened fraction of a degree. This is a whole-of-government, every-industry commitment. It's crunch time. Or consequences.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. Opened in 2008, the gene bank preserves duplicates of 1,301,387 seed samples representing over 4,000 different species from almost every country in the world with room for millions more. Its purpose is to preserve seed collections as the foundation of future food supplies in the event of the fallout of war, climate change, international crisis, or a global catastrophe. It holds the most diverse collection of crop seeds in the world.

In October 2024, over 20 countries deposited additional seed varieties representing the second-largest multi deposit event since the Vault’s inception. Among many other crops, the deposit included pearl maize and sorghum from first-time contributor Chad, diverse maize and bean varieties from a 400-year-old university in Bolivia and thousands of rice varieties from the Philippines. With so many threats to food production, the global seed vault has greater value than ever.