NEWS BRIEFING AND EXPERT REACTION: State of the Climate 2024 - Aussie weather and climate continue to change

This report confirms the changes in our climate and oceans we have been observing for a considerable time. It reinforces that we have a robust understanding of climate change including the relationships between the different elements.

The trajectories of change are accelerating as are the impacts we are observing. However, our responses in terms of both reducing our emissions or building capacity to adapt to the increased risk are lagging behind where they rationally should be.

Humanity is imposing far-reaching changes on the planet through our continuous emissions of greenhouse gases on a large scale. This report highlights just how big those changes are in the Australian region. We are causing rapid warming and changes in rainfall and extreme weather events that are making our country less hospitable. We cannot escape the reality that we need to greatly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. By decarbonising our economy and society we can limit the damages to the Australian environment from a warming world.

The latest State of the Climate Report confirms what the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change said in their Sixth Assessment Report: Australia is uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The goal agreed at the Paris talks was to keep the increase in average global temperature below 1.5 degrees, but the Australian land has already warmed by more than this.

We are paying a heavy price, with the annual cost of property damage from extreme events now roughly double what it was only five years ago. We are seeing a longer fire season across large parts of the country, an increase in extreme fire weather and a broad drying trend accompanied by more severe rainfall events and serious flooding. Significant changes to rainfall patterns are affecting our capacity to produce our food. We are clearly facing what several local authorities have recognised as a climate emergency.

Given the situation, it is grossly irresponsible for governments to continue to encourage and subsidise new fossil fuel projects. It is an urgent priority to supplement the good work being done to decarbonise our electricity supply with a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects. The need for rapid change reinforces the obvious conclusion that we need urgently to invest in solar and wind energy with storage. The time and cost of nuclear power, as well as its demand for massive up-front inputs of fossil fuel energy, make it a totally inappropriate response.

Climate change manifests as changes to the weather. As the latest State of the Climate Report highlights, Australia has been battered by more frequent and intense weather events such as heatwaves, fire weather, and short-term heavy rainfall. We have also seen declines in rainfall in southern Australia and increasingly shorter snow seasons.
 
These human-caused changes to the weather have far-reaching impacts on society. Australia is causing these impacts by continuing to burn coal, oil, and gas, and by exporting vast quantities of fossil fuels to be burned overseas. If we continue to burn fossil fuels at home and export them to be burned elsewhere, we will continue to increase Australia’s risk to severe weather events.