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.
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