Apocalyptic climate risk report demands 75 pct emissions cut and urgent decarbonisation

The Albanese government will reportedly announce a new 2035 emissions reduction target this week. The pressure is now on.

We have, for the first time, formal recognition from the government of the escalating risks of climate change and its devastating economic, health and social impacts in the form of the landmark National Climate Risk Assessment report.

The picture it paints is apocalyptic. In line with the climate science, the Risk Assessment reports that future extreme weather is likely to present heightened risks to people, places and our way of life.

As climate hazards change in frequency and increase in severity, we will experience  “cascading, compounding and concurrent” climate hazards (heatwaves, bushfires, floods, storms) sparing no Australian community, and spelling “significant potential for loss of life and strain on health systems”.

These concurrent events amplify damage to infrastructure, health systems, economies and communities. Heat-related mortality is expected to increase dramatically. In Sydney, for example, deaths from heat could rise by 103% under ~1.5°C of warming, and by close to 450% under ~3°C.

Coastal flood days are projected to increase dramatically, with Sydney potentially seeing over 300 coastal flood days per year by 2090 under ~3°C warming. Sea-level rise will mean millions of Australians living in low-lying coastal zones are at increasing risk of inundation, loss of property, and costly damage to coastal infrastructure.

By 2050, 1.5 million coastal residents would be at risk, and 3 million by 2090.  Nearly 600,000 people live in areas that will become exposed to sea level rise within a mere 5 years, by 2030.

The projected economic toll and asset value destruction is profound. Property values in flood-prone, bushfire-prone, or otherwise vulnerable areas are expected to decline significantly, up to $611bn by 2050. Insurance in some areas may become unaffordable or even unavailable as risk escalates. 

There are significant risks to already fragile ecosystems and biodiversity. Coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef are prone to suffer the “catastrophic consequences” of recurring bleaching events, which may be irreversible.

Forty to 70% of species would need to relocate or adapt or would be at risk of “dying out”, with Australia’s great eucalypt forests, alpine ecosystems and Gondwana rainforest also under threat.

Northern Australia, remote and Indigenous communities, and outer suburbs of major cities are especially vulnerable. These areas often have less adaptive capacity such as infrastructure and health services and are likely to be hit hardest.

Even if warming is held to 1.5°C the government’s modelling shows the direct economic cost of floods, bushfires, storms and cyclones would reach $40bn a year in 2050. However, this is a vastly understated economic cost risk assessment. 

The Climate Change Authority says based on current global commitments, the world is on track to see 2.9°C of warming.

The real cost of ignoring the climate science is now clear, and worn by all of us, economically and in every aspect of our lives.

It has never been more obvious that the costs of inaction are greater than the costs of action. 

Failure to massively accelerate our energy transition with an ambitious emissions reduction of 75% by 2035 – noting that the climate science actually dictates stronger action – would be a betrayal of our intergenerational responsibility to act now to mitigate climate destruction.

Australia is a global top 3 exporter of fossil fuels in a world where emissions know no borders. The government must stop approving new coal and gas – greenlighting Woodside’s North West Shelf gas bomb last week is fuelling the very crisis this report identifies – and shift our strategic economic focus to massively step up the speed and scale of investment into decarbonisation of our energy and industrial systems and resources sector. 

It is the height of economic irresponsibility to keep devoting our scarce resources to digging the hole deeper, or pretending slightly lower emissions is somehow a bridge.

We need to pivot our finite human capital, investment, enabling public infrastructure and government resources towards burgeoning zero-emissions industries of the future, in which Australia, with its abundant renewables and critical minerals, can play a globally-significant role. 

It’s high time we ignore the self-serving bleating of fossil fuel industry vested interests, their lobbyists, and captured politicians and ex-politicians who are actively undermining the public interest and endangering our lives and economy. The stakes are existential.

A safe climate is the prerequisite for future prosperity for all and the basis of our economic resilience.  This depends on accelerating our emission reductions now, and urgently pivoting to singularly focus on our potential as a zero-emissions trade and investment leader in a decarbonising world. Anything less is unconscionable.

Tim Buckley, director, Climate Energy Finance, and AM Jonson, editorial director CEF