We can no longer pretend this isn’t a crisis
What will it take for policymakers to take this more seriously?
That was the question a desperate-sounding Jeremy asked on local ABC talkback radio as he drove through central Victoria, devastated by bushfires last week, while his family was on the Great Ocean Road trapped by floodwaters.
This is a question we should all ask.
Queenslanders have been warned to prepare for further flooding and strong waves in the coming days as the former continues to recover from cyclone Koji, with another cyclone at risk of forming off the coast.
In both NSW and Victoria, authorities warned people over the weekend to limit the time they spend outdoors to reduce exposure to bushfire smoke. It should be noted that this smoke contains toxic particles from everything burned in fires (not just trees and grass, but buildings, factories, vehicles and more).
Communities in southern New South Wales have been affected by the fires. Communities in Queensland’s central highlands were called to evacuate as the Mackenzie River approached its peak on Thursday morning. Large areas of Western Australia are still grappling with severe heatwaves and bushfires.
Hundreds of people were left homeless due to Victorian bushfires. Many more are now homeless – temporarily tourists, thankfully – as floods ripped through the Great Ocean Road and Gippsland on Thursday.
These are not just “weather events” and we were not warned. Climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades about the devastation that uncontrolled fossil fuel production and consumption and resulting warming will bring.
They warned that a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, exacerbating sudden storms like the one that tore up the Great Ocean Road.
But there is still a maddening tendency to treat every environmental crisis thrown our way by climate change as just another isolated event.
Of course, this claim needs to be demolished now.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that 2 degrees of global warming will make extreme heat 2.6 times worse, raise sea levels by six centimeters, accelerate extinctions, reduce crop yields and global fisheries, and increase extreme weather events.
It is increasingly likely that this will be the scenario our children will inherit.
Just this week, the Copernicus Climate Change Service and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service for the European Commission published their latest report on how we are tracking against the IPCC criteria. Their findings are based on global climate monitoring from organizations including NASA, NOAA, the UK Met Office, Berkeley Earth and the World Meteorological Organization.
As this imprint reports, data shows that last year was officially the planet’s third warmest year on record, after 2024 and 2023.
The past 11 years have been the 11 hottest years on record. 2023-25 temperatures were on average 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels; for the first time this figure exceeded the target set for a three-year period in the 2015 Paris Agreement; However, ten-year data are needed to evaluate this trend as permanent.
Victoria is an important case study.
As scores of bushfires continue to burn out of control after a week of blazes, flash flooding hit the Great Ocean Road so intensely on Thursday that scores of cars and caravans were swept away in the River Wye.
This is the same small tourist spot where the campground and shore were closed less than a week ago due to bushfire danger.
About 10 kilometers away, the Bureau of Meteorology recorded 175 millimeters of rain in six hours – the equivalent of three months’ rain.
Also on Thursday, Environment Minister Murray Watt gave critically endangered status to the River Murray and its associated floodplains downstream of the River Darling.
News that these important ecosystems would be given the highest level of legal protection under the EPBC Act was criticized by the National Farmers Federation, where Water Committee chairman Malcolm Holm questioned the need for “more bureaucracy”.
Watt’s list was nevertheless welcomed by environmental groups and represents an acceptance of the adage that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity.
But more needs to be done.
Australia has set a target of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. In November, international university partnership Net Zero Australia calculated that based on current trends: We are ten years behind this target.
Two months ago, the federal government accepted the Climate Change Agency’s recommendation and adopted a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 62-70 percent by 2035. While this target puts Australia within the range of similar industrialized countries, it does not go far or fast enough, according to almost every climate scientist in the country.
As the events of the past week have shown, it has taken a long time for their dire warnings to be heeded.
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Bianca Hall is The Age’s environment and climate correspondent and has worked in a variety of roles including senior writer, city editor and the federal policy office in Canberra.Connect with: excitement, Facebook or email.
