Yesterday was Commonwealth Day. The theme was the environment, but some of the diplomats and politicians celebrating at Parliament House Sydney did not realise they were about to be shaken out of their complacency on climate change.

Like most politicians, economists, lawyers, readers of Crikey and me, the knowledge of the audience about global warming was probably pretty limited.

They weren’t challenged when Governor Professor Marie Bashir, after reviewing the massed flag bearers and being piped in, read the carefully considered message on the environment from The Queen. (Her Majesty’s personal message, not her ministers.) It was the keynote speaker who was to shake them — Professor Ian Plimer,