The Carbon Club

The inside story of how a network of influential climate sceptics, politicians and business leaders fought to control Australia's response to the climate crisis.

As the climate crisis threatens more extreme bushfire seasons, droughts and floods, many Australians are demanding their leaders answer the question: 'Why didn't you do something?'

The Carbon Club reveals the truth behind Australia's two decades of climate inaction. It's the story of how a loose confederation of influential climate-science sceptics, politicians and business leaders sought to control Australia's response to the climate crisis. They shared a fear that dealing with climate change would undermine the nation's wealth, jobs and competitive advantage - and the power of the carbon club.

Central to their strategy was an international campaign to undermine climate science and the urgency of the climate crisis. The more the climate science was questioned, the more politicians lost the imperative to act. The sustained success of the carbon club over two decades explains why Australian governments failed to deal with the challenge of climate change. But at what cost to us and the next generation?

One of Australia's most respected investigative journalists, Marian Wilkinson has tracked the rise and rise of Australia's carbon club in brilliant detail, with extraordinary access to key players on all sides. The result is a book that is both essential and disturbing reading.

About the Author

Marian Wilkinson is a multi-award-winning journalist with a career that has spanned radio, television and print.

She has covered politics, national security, refugee issues and climate change as well as serving as a foreign correspondent in Washington, DC for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. She was a deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, executive producer of the ABC's Four Corners program and a senior reporter with Four Corners.

As environment editor for the Sydney Morning Herald, she reported on the rapid melt of Arctic sea ice for a joint Four Corners -Sydney Morning Herald production that won a Walkley Award for journalism and the Australian Museum's Eureka prize for environmental journalism. She also covered the UN climate conferences in Bali and Copenhagen.

As a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), she reported on the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers for Four Corners.

She has written several books, including the political biography The Fixer, on former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson, and Dark Victory, on Australia's response to asylum seekers, which she co-authored with David Marr.

In 2018 she was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame.