This week the National Press Club in Canberra hosted Michelle Manook, chief executive of Futurecoal - the reincarnation of the World Coal Association - who put forward its new, bright, vision for sustainable coal stewardship.

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This accepts the necessity for decarbonisation to address climate change, but justifies the long-term, expanding use of coal via a range of advanced coal technologies to reduce its high carbon emission levels, along with the necessity to provide the Global South with a low-cost energy growth path.

This is an evolution of technologies which have been promoted by the industry for decades as it gradually moved from outright climate change denial in the 1990s, to grudging public acceptance of its reality more recently, driven by undeniable evidence of accelerating climate impact, specifically the costs in terms of death, destruction, social and economic upheaval worldwide.

But the fact that the industry can promote this techno-optimistic vision in 2025 demonstrates that its leaders have yet to fully grasp the implications of the denialist path which they, along with their ilk in other fossil fuel industries, politics, business and the media, committed the world to over the past three decades.

What is missing from the pictures painted of the bright future for all fossil fuels, not just coal, is any recognition of the risks which climate change now represents to the future of humanity, due to a massive global leadership failure to honestly accept and act upon the climate science.

As the authoritative State of the Climate 2025 report summarised last month:

"We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet's vital signs are flashing red. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer future threats but are here now. This unfolding emergency stems from failed foresight, political inaction, unsustainable economic systems and misinformation. Almost every corner of the biosphere is reeling from........

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