Rising oceans and flooding caused by climate change would threaten the homes and livelihoods of more than 1 million Australians by 2050, while deaths from heat-related illness would soar, a landmark report warned yesterday ahead of Canberra’s release of emission reduction targets this week.
The long-awaited national climate risk assessment found that rising temperatures would have “cascading, compounding, concurrent” impacts on life in Australia, home to more than 27 million people.
“We are living climate change now. It’s no longer a forecast, a projection or prediction — it is a live reality, and it’s too late to avoid any impacts,” Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said.
Photo: EPA
The report, prepared independently for the government, found that 1.5 million people living in coastal areas would be at risk of sea level rise and coastal flooding by 2050.
By 2090, about 3 million people would be at risk from rising oceans.
Sea level rises pose a significant threat to homes, livelihoods and cultural connections — particularly in locations such as the Torres Strait Islands, the report said.
Scattered through the warm waters off Australia’s northernmost tip, the sparsely populated islands are threatened by seas rising much faster than the global average.
Joanne Hill, community engagement coordinator at Edith Cowan University and an indigenous woman, said in response to the report that “we cannot delay this emergency response anymore.”
“Our coastal and island communities, particularly the Torres Strait Islands, are at immediate risk of losing their homes, their cultural practices and traditions if we do not do anything now,” Hill said.
The report came as Australia is set to release its next round of emissions reduction targets in the coming week, a key obligation under the landmark Paris climate agreement.
Many hope the country would reveal more ambitious targets.
Losses in Australian property values are estimated to soar to A$611 billion (US$407 billion) by 2050 and could increase to A$770 billion by 2090.
Should temperatures increase by 3°C, heat-related deaths could soar by more than 400 percent in Sydney, Australia’s most-populated city, the report said.
Australia’s unique species would also be forced to move, adapt to the new conditions or die out as climate change intensifies, the report said.
Amanda McKenzie, chief executive of the Climate Council non-governmental organization, described the report as “terrifying.”
“We can choose a better future by cutting climate pollution harder and faster now,” McKenzie said. “The first step is legislating the strongest possible 2035 climate target and stopping new polluting projects.”
One of the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporters, Australia has been criticized for treating climate action as a political and economic liability.
Bowen said moving to a greener future presented a “complicated and complex” set of challenges, and that gas would remain a necessary backup renewable in the energy mix.
“But we also face that challenge from a position of strength, because we have the best renewable resources in the world,” he said.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
RSS