Dr Martin Rice

This report makes clear there are significant and rapidly increasing costs to continued climate pollution in a time of accelerating extremes.

Australia’s shift to clean energy is well underway. But we still have a long way to go, and moving too slowly is dangerous.

We drove our electric car from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast and back – just a casual 4,300km round trip.

This report outlines current financial system risk arising from fossil fuel investment, focusing on bank lending to fossil fuel expansion and the potential to reform prudential regulation to ensure bank lending is aligned with a decarbonised future.

Australia’s main national environment law is supposed to protect the animals, plants, landscapes and ecosystems that are our shared natural endowment. But it is failing in this essential task.

Australia has long been referred to as a land of “drought and flooding rains”, prone to bushfires as well as intense rainfall events. Periods of hot, dry, windy weather have regularly dried out vegetation and made it susceptible to ignition, alternating with prolonged wet periods that have promoted rapid and widespread vegetation growth. Climate change, driven by the burning of coal, oil, and gas, is worsening these extreme weather events.

The record-breaking and relentless deluge that has flooded towns and cities in Queensland and New South Wales is one of the most extreme disasters in Australian history, and the devastation is wide-ranging. Climate change is intensifying extreme rainfall.

Climate change is accelerating. Global warming is forecast to exceed 1.5˚C during the 2030s—an urgent challenge that demands Australia achieve net zero by 2035.

Australia’s rich sporting identity is threatened by climate change—with increased heatwaves, bushfires—but remains an integral part of the solution.

Australia’s Black Summer of 2019-2020 was characterised by catastrophic bushfires. The bushfire season started in winter and was the worst on record for NSW in terms of its intensity, the area burned, and the number of properties lost. It was also the worst season on record for properties lost in Queensland.

A long-term warming trend from the burning of coal, oil & gas is supercharging extreme weather events, putting Australian lives, our economy & our environment at risk. The Climate Council’s new report finds this summer is shaping up as a terrible trifecta of heatwaves, droughts & bushfires made worse by climate change.

Australia is home to more than a million species of plants and animals, yet our track record on conservation is woeful; climate change is making it even harder to protect our natural ecosystems and unique wildlife.

Australia’s water security has already been significantly influenced by climate change. Rainfall patterns are shifting and the severity of floods and droughts has increased.

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF could be hit with repeat coral bleaching events every two years by 2034 under current greenhouse gas pollution rates, the Climate Council’s new report shows.

Australia’s food supply chain is highly exposed to disruption from increasing extreme weather events driven by climate change, with farmers already struggling to cope with more frequent and intense droughts and changing weather patterns.