How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine

How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine, if Australians' recent experience of more extreme weather and natural disasters - driven by a hotter climate - are an indication, because the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future.
Civil engineer Alan Hoban says flood maps around Australia drastically underestimate the impact climate change will have on rainfall due to conservative assumptions about how fast rainfall intensity will increase.
"Very few flood maps in south-east Queensland, or even Australia, yet account for these changes," he says.
Extreme floods and rain events are often oddly described as a "one-in-a-hundred-year" or a "one-in-five hundred-year" event, suggesting they are unlikely to recur. But then they happen again, within a few years. This shows the assessments of future climate risks are too conservative, and so vulnerable communities and governments are under-prepared.
Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires were of an intensity not projected to occur till towards the end of the century. And some heat extremes of the early 2020s were at a level projected for the 2030s. It's a problem created in part by over-reliance on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have a track record of being too conservative.
The Australian government is late in delivering its first domestically-focused National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December, and should be the basis for emergency management, resilience and climate adaptation planning.
Will it be up to date, and will it give attention to the plausible worst-case (extreme) possibilities, because they result in the greatest damage to people and property? There is reason to worry that the physical reality of accelerating climate disruption will mug Australia's risk assessment and leave us poorly prepared.
One foundation for understanding future climate impacts is how quickly temperatures will rise. And that is now a big issue, because the government's assumption was that warming would be in the range of 1.5 to 2 degrees by 2050. And it is still the basis of most international climate policy formulation. Now it is way out of date.
Just seven years ago, IPCC scientists projected global average warming of 1.5 degrees would not occur till 2040. But that warming level has now been reached, 15 years earlier than forecast. Both 2023 and 2024 reached 1.5 degrees, and the running average for the last 24 months has been close to 1.6 degrees. For all practical purposes, the warming trend has reached 1.5 degeres. A new World Meteorological Organization report says that Earth will cross this point in just two years, with a "70 per cent chance that the 2025-29 five-year mean will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 average".
Acknowledging that a level of warming not expected till 2040 is here right now in 2025 means facing the bitter reality that 15 years have just been "lost" from the emissions-reduction timetable.
What does that practically mean? At the 2015 Paris climate policymaking conference, the goal of holding warming to 1.5-2 degrees was agreed to, together with actions (in theory) to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, based on the now-superseded warming projections. So the "lost" 15 years means that this net-zero-by-2050 goal now needs to be net-zero-by-2035.
Most policymakers, including the Australian government, seem not to have recognised this. When the penny drops in Canberra that we are already at 1.5 degrees, will that realisation be reflected in the National Climate Risk Assessment?
Australia's climate modelling capacity has been degraded. The biggest problems are lack of independent and expert scientific advice, and the lack of coordination across departments and agencies, and a culture of empire-building. Restoring a climate science advisory group to provide high-level, independent advice to the Australian government is a key task.
Scientists have been shocked at the pace of change. The rate of warming has accelerated from less than 0.2 dgrees per decade to 0.3 degrees or more per decade. And tipping points are occurring now, including at both poles. Permafrost, boreal forests and the Amazon are becoming net carbon emitters.
This year, new research has reaffirmed that 1.5 degrees is too high to prevent tipping points: there is a significant risk of large Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5 degrees, yet we are there right now. And there is a new scientific warning that "1.5 degrees is too high for polar ice sheets". The evidence grows that the 1.5 degrees target was never a safe target for humanity.
All of this leads to one conclusion: we are on the edge of a precipice and humanity now needs to throw everything at the climate threat, literally "all hands on deck". The late professor Will Steffen's call to make climate the primary target of policy and economics is now a survival imperative. The business-as-usual delusion embraced by policymakers that climate is just another issue is laid bare by the 1.5 degrees time-bomb.
How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine, if Australians' recent experience of more extreme weather and natural disasters - driven by a hotter climate - are an indication, because the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future.
Civil engineer Alan Hoban says flood maps around Australia drastically underestimate the impact climate change will have on rainfall due to conservative assumptions about how fast rainfall intensity will increase.
"Very few flood maps in south-east Queensland, or even Australia, yet account for these changes," he says.
Extreme floods and rain events are often oddly described as a "one-in-a-hundred-year" or a "one-in-five hundred-year" event, suggesting they are unlikely to recur. But then they happen again, within a few years. This shows the assessments of future climate risks are too conservative, and so vulnerable communities and governments are under-prepared.
Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires were of an intensity not projected to occur till towards the end of the century. And some heat extremes of the early 2020s were at a level projected for the 2030s. It's a problem created in part by over-reliance on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have a track record of being too conservative.
The Australian government is late in delivering its first domestically-focused National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December, and should be the basis for emergency management, resilience and climate adaptation planning.
Will it be up to date, and will it give attention to the plausible worst-case (extreme) possibilities, because they result in the greatest damage to people and property? There is reason to worry that the physical reality of accelerating climate disruption will mug Australia's risk assessment and leave us poorly prepared.
One foundation for understanding future climate impacts is how quickly temperatures will rise. And that is now a big issue, because the government's assumption was that warming would be in the range of 1.5 to 2 degrees by 2050. And it is still the basis of most international climate policy formulation. Now it is way out of date.
Just seven years ago, IPCC scientists projected global average warming of 1.5 degrees would not occur till 2040. But that warming level has now been reached, 15 years earlier than forecast. Both 2023 and 2024 reached 1.5 degrees, and the running average for the last 24 months has been close to 1.6 degrees. For all practical purposes, the warming trend has reached 1.5 degeres. A new World Meteorological Organization report says that Earth will cross this point in just two years, with a "70 per cent chance that the 2025-29 five-year mean will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 average".
Acknowledging that a level of warming not expected till 2040 is here right now in 2025 means facing the bitter reality that 15 years have just been "lost" from the emissions-reduction timetable.
What does that practically mean? At the 2015 Paris climate policymaking conference, the goal of holding warming to 1.5-2 degrees was agreed to, together with actions (in theory) to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, based on the now-superseded warming projections. So the "lost" 15 years means that this net-zero-by-2050 goal now needs to be net-zero-by-2035.
Most policymakers, including the Australian government, seem not to have recognised this. When the penny drops in Canberra that we are already at 1.5 degrees, will that realisation be reflected in the National Climate Risk Assessment?
Australia's climate modelling capacity has been degraded. The biggest problems are lack of independent and expert scientific advice, and the lack of coordination across departments and agencies, and a culture of empire-building. Restoring a climate science advisory group to provide high-level, independent advice to the Australian government is a key task.
Scientists have been shocked at the pace of change. The rate of warming has accelerated from less than 0.2 dgrees per decade to 0.3 degrees or more per decade. And tipping points are occurring now, including at both poles. Permafrost, boreal forests and the Amazon are becoming net carbon emitters.
This year, new research has reaffirmed that 1.5 degrees is too high to prevent tipping points: there is a significant risk of large Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5 degrees, yet we are there right now. And there is a new scientific warning that "1.5 degrees is too high for polar ice sheets". The evidence grows that the 1.5 degrees target was never a safe target for humanity.
All of this leads to one conclusion: we are on the edge of a precipice and humanity now needs to throw everything at the climate threat, literally "all hands on deck". The late professor Will Steffen's call to make climate the primary target of policy and economics is now a survival imperative. The business-as-usual delusion embraced by policymakers that climate is just another issue is laid bare by the 1.5 degrees time-bomb.
How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine, if Australians' recent experience of more extreme weather and natural disasters - driven by a hotter climate - are an indication, because the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future.
Civil engineer Alan Hoban says flood maps around Australia drastically underestimate the impact climate change will have on rainfall due to conservative assumptions about how fast rainfall intensity will increase.
"Very few flood maps in south-east Queensland, or even Australia, yet account for these changes," he says.
Extreme floods and rain events are often oddly described as a "one-in-a-hundred-year" or a "one-in-five hundred-year" event, suggesting they are unlikely to recur. But then they happen again, within a few years. This shows the assessments of future climate risks are too conservative, and so vulnerable communities and governments are under-prepared.
Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires were of an intensity not projected to occur till towards the end of the century. And some heat extremes of the early 2020s were at a level projected for the 2030s. It's a problem created in part by over-reliance on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have a track record of being too conservative.
The Australian government is late in delivering its first domestically-focused National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December, and should be the basis for emergency management, resilience and climate adaptation planning.
Will it be up to date, and will it give attention to the plausible worst-case (extreme) possibilities, because they result in the greatest damage to people and property? There is reason to worry that the physical reality of accelerating climate disruption will mug Australia's risk assessment and leave us poorly prepared.
One foundation for understanding future climate impacts is how quickly temperatures will rise. And that is now a big issue, because the government's assumption was that warming would be in the range of 1.5 to 2 degrees by 2050. And it is still the basis of most international climate policy formulation. Now it is way out of date.
Just seven years ago, IPCC scientists projected global average warming of 1.5 degrees would not occur till 2040. But that warming level has now been reached, 15 years earlier than forecast. Both 2023 and 2024 reached 1.5 degrees, and the running average for the last 24 months has been close to 1.6 degrees. For all practical purposes, the warming trend has reached 1.5 degeres. A new World Meteorological Organization report says that Earth will cross this point in just two years, with a "70 per cent chance that the 2025-29 five-year mean will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 average".
Acknowledging that a level of warming not expected till 2040 is here right now in 2025 means facing the bitter reality that 15 years have just been "lost" from the emissions-reduction timetable.
What does that practically mean? At the 2015 Paris climate policymaking conference, the goal of holding warming to 1.5-2 degrees was agreed to, together with actions (in theory) to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, based on the now-superseded warming projections. So the "lost" 15 years means that this net-zero-by-2050 goal now needs to be net-zero-by-2035.
Most policymakers, including the Australian government, seem not to have recognised this. When the penny drops in Canberra that we are already at 1.5 degrees, will that realisation be reflected in the National Climate Risk Assessment?
Australia's climate modelling capacity has been degraded. The biggest problems are lack of independent and expert scientific advice, and the lack of coordination across departments and agencies, and a culture of empire-building. Restoring a climate science advisory group to provide high-level, independent advice to the Australian government is a key task.
Scientists have been shocked at the pace of change. The rate of warming has accelerated from less than 0.2 dgrees per decade to 0.3 degrees or more per decade. And tipping points are occurring now, including at both poles. Permafrost, boreal forests and the Amazon are becoming net carbon emitters.
This year, new research has reaffirmed that 1.5 degrees is too high to prevent tipping points: there is a significant risk of large Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5 degrees, yet we are there right now. And there is a new scientific warning that "1.5 degrees is too high for polar ice sheets". The evidence grows that the 1.5 degrees target was never a safe target for humanity.
All of this leads to one conclusion: we are on the edge of a precipice and humanity now needs to throw everything at the climate threat, literally "all hands on deck". The late professor Will Steffen's call to make climate the primary target of policy and economics is now a survival imperative. The business-as-usual delusion embraced by policymakers that climate is just another issue is laid bare by the 1.5 degrees time-bomb.
How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine, if Australians' recent experience of more extreme weather and natural disasters - driven by a hotter climate - are an indication, because the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future.
Civil engineer Alan Hoban says flood maps around Australia drastically underestimate the impact climate change will have on rainfall due to conservative assumptions about how fast rainfall intensity will increase.
"Very few flood maps in south-east Queensland, or even Australia, yet account for these changes," he says.
Extreme floods and rain events are often oddly described as a "one-in-a-hundred-year" or a "one-in-five hundred-year" event, suggesting they are unlikely to recur. But then they happen again, within a few years. This shows the assessments of future climate risks are too conservative, and so vulnerable communities and governments are under-prepared.
Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires were of an intensity not projected to occur till towards the end of the century. And some heat extremes of the early 2020s were at a level projected for the 2030s. It's a problem created in part by over-reliance on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have a track record of being too conservative.
The Australian government is late in delivering its first domestically-focused National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December, and should be the basis for emergency management, resilience and climate adaptation planning.
Will it be up to date, and will it give attention to the plausible worst-case (extreme) possibilities, because they result in the greatest damage to people and property? There is reason to worry that the physical reality of accelerating climate disruption will mug Australia's risk assessment and leave us poorly prepared.
One foundation for understanding future climate impacts is how quickly temperatures will rise. And that is now a big issue, because the government's assumption was that warming would be in the range of 1.5 to 2 degrees by 2050. And it is still the basis of most international climate policy formulation. Now it is way out of date.
Just seven years ago, IPCC scientists projected global average warming of 1.5 degrees would not occur till 2040. But that warming level has now been reached, 15 years earlier than forecast. Both 2023 and 2024 reached 1.5 degrees, and the running average for the last 24 months has been close to 1.6 degrees. For all practical purposes, the warming trend has reached 1.5 degeres. A new World Meteorological Organization report says that Earth will cross this point in just two years, with a "70 per cent chance that the 2025-29 five-year mean will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 average".
Acknowledging that a level of warming not expected till 2040 is here right now in 2025 means facing the bitter reality that 15 years have just been "lost" from the emissions-reduction timetable.
What does that practically mean? At the 2015 Paris climate policymaking conference, the goal of holding warming to 1.5-2 degrees was agreed to, together with actions (in theory) to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, based on the now-superseded warming projections. So the "lost" 15 years means that this net-zero-by-2050 goal now needs to be net-zero-by-2035.
Most policymakers, including the Australian government, seem not to have recognised this. When the penny drops in Canberra that we are already at 1.5 degrees, will that realisation be reflected in the National Climate Risk Assessment?
Australia's climate modelling capacity has been degraded. The biggest problems are lack of independent and expert scientific advice, and the lack of coordination across departments and agencies, and a culture of empire-building. Restoring a climate science advisory group to provide high-level, independent advice to the Australian government is a key task.
Scientists have been shocked at the pace of change. The rate of warming has accelerated from less than 0.2 dgrees per decade to 0.3 degrees or more per decade. And tipping points are occurring now, including at both poles. Permafrost, boreal forests and the Amazon are becoming net carbon emitters.
This year, new research has reaffirmed that 1.5 degrees is too high to prevent tipping points: there is a significant risk of large Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5 degrees, yet we are there right now. And there is a new scientific warning that "1.5 degrees is too high for polar ice sheets". The evidence grows that the 1.5 degrees target was never a safe target for humanity.
All of this leads to one conclusion: we are on the edge of a precipice and humanity now needs to throw everything at the climate threat, literally "all hands on deck". The late professor Will Steffen's call to make climate the primary target of policy and economics is now a survival imperative. The business-as-usual delusion embraced by policymakers that climate is just another issue is laid bare by the 1.5 degrees time-bomb.

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How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine

How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine, if Australians' recent experience of more extreme weather and natural disasters - driven by a hotter climate - are an indication, because the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future. Civil engineer Alan Hoban says flood maps around Australia drastically underestimate the impact climate change will have on rainfall due to conservative assumptions about how fast rainfall intensity will increase. "Very few flood maps in south-east Queensland, or even Australia, yet account for these changes," he says. Extreme floods and rain events are often oddly described as a "one-in-a-hundred-year" or a "one-in-five hundred-year" event, suggesting they are unlikely to recur. But then they happen again, within a few years. This shows the assessments of future climate risks are too conservative, and so vulnerable communities and governments are under-prepared. Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires were of an intensity not projected to occur till towards the end of the century. And some heat extremes of the early 2020s were at a level projected for the 2030s. It's a problem created in part by over-reliance on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have a track record of being too conservative. The Australian government is late in delivering its first domestically-focused National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December, and should be the basis for emergency management, resilience and climate adaptation planning. Will it be up to date, and will it give attention to the plausible worst-case (extreme) possibilities, because they result in the greatest damage to people and property? There is reason to worry that the physical reality of accelerating climate disruption will mug Australia's risk assessment and leave us poorly prepared. One foundation for understanding future climate impacts is how quickly temperatures will rise. And that is now a big issue, because the government's assumption was that warming would be in the range of 1.5 to 2 degrees by 2050. And it is still the basis of most international climate policy formulation. Now it is way out of date. Just seven years ago, IPCC scientists projected global average warming of 1.5 degrees would not occur till 2040. But that warming level has now been reached, 15 years earlier than forecast. Both 2023 and 2024 reached 1.5 degrees, and the running average for the last 24 months has been close to 1.6 degrees. For all practical purposes, the warming trend has reached 1.5 degeres. A new World Meteorological Organization report says that Earth will cross this point in just two years, with a "70 per cent chance that the 2025-29 five-year mean will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 average". Acknowledging that a level of warming not expected till 2040 is here right now in 2025 means facing the bitter reality that 15 years have just been "lost" from the emissions-reduction timetable. What does that practically mean? At the 2015 Paris climate policymaking conference, the goal of holding warming to 1.5-2 degrees was agreed to, together with actions (in theory) to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, based on the now-superseded warming projections. So the "lost" 15 years means that this net-zero-by-2050 goal now needs to be net-zero-by-2035. Most policymakers, including the Australian government, seem not to have recognised this. When the penny drops in Canberra that we are already at 1.5 degrees, will that realisation be reflected in the National Climate Risk Assessment? Australia's climate modelling capacity has been degraded. The biggest problems are lack of independent and expert scientific advice, and the lack of coordination across departments and agencies, and a culture of empire-building. Restoring a climate science advisory group to provide high-level, independent advice to the Australian government is a key task. Scientists have been shocked at the pace of change. The rate of warming has accelerated from less than 0.2 dgrees per decade to 0.3 degrees or more per decade. And tipping points are occurring now, including at both poles. Permafrost, boreal forests and the Amazon are becoming net carbon emitters. This year, new research has reaffirmed that 1.5 degrees is too high to prevent tipping points: there is a significant risk of large Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5 degrees, yet we are there right now. And there is a new scientific warning that "1.5 degrees is too high for polar ice sheets". The evidence grows that the 1.5 degrees target was never a safe target for humanity. All of this leads to one conclusion: we are on the edge of a precipice and humanity now needs to throw everything at the climate threat, literally "all hands on deck". The late professor Will Steffen's call to make climate the primary target of policy and economics is now a survival imperative. The business-as-usual delusion embraced by policymakers that climate is just another issue is laid bare by the 1.5 degrees time-bomb. How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine, if Australians' recent experience of more extreme weather and natural disasters - driven by a hotter climate - are an indication, because the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future. Civil engineer Alan Hoban says flood maps around Australia drastically underestimate the impact climate change will have on rainfall due to conservative assumptions about how fast rainfall intensity will increase. "Very few flood maps in south-east Queensland, or even Australia, yet account for these changes," he says. Extreme floods and rain events are often oddly described as a "one-in-a-hundred-year" or a "one-in-five hundred-year" event, suggesting they are unlikely to recur. But then they happen again, within a few years. This shows the assessments of future climate risks are too conservative, and so vulnerable communities and governments are under-prepared. Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires were of an intensity not projected to occur till towards the end of the century. And some heat extremes of the early 2020s were at a level projected for the 2030s. It's a problem created in part by over-reliance on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have a track record of being too conservative. The Australian government is late in delivering its first domestically-focused National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December, and should be the basis for emergency management, resilience and climate adaptation planning. Will it be up to date, and will it give attention to the plausible worst-case (extreme) possibilities, because they result in the greatest damage to people and property? There is reason to worry that the physical reality of accelerating climate disruption will mug Australia's risk assessment and leave us poorly prepared. One foundation for understanding future climate impacts is how quickly temperatures will rise. And that is now a big issue, because the government's assumption was that warming would be in the range of 1.5 to 2 degrees by 2050. And it is still the basis of most international climate policy formulation. Now it is way out of date. Just seven years ago, IPCC scientists projected global average warming of 1.5 degrees would not occur till 2040. But that warming level has now been reached, 15 years earlier than forecast. Both 2023 and 2024 reached 1.5 degrees, and the running average for the last 24 months has been close to 1.6 degrees. For all practical purposes, the warming trend has reached 1.5 degeres. A new World Meteorological Organization report says that Earth will cross this point in just two years, with a "70 per cent chance that the 2025-29 five-year mean will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 average". Acknowledging that a level of warming not expected till 2040 is here right now in 2025 means facing the bitter reality that 15 years have just been "lost" from the emissions-reduction timetable. What does that practically mean? At the 2015 Paris climate policymaking conference, the goal of holding warming to 1.5-2 degrees was agreed to, together with actions (in theory) to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, based on the now-superseded warming projections. So the "lost" 15 years means that this net-zero-by-2050 goal now needs to be net-zero-by-2035. Most policymakers, including the Australian government, seem not to have recognised this. When the penny drops in Canberra that we are already at 1.5 degrees, will that realisation be reflected in the National Climate Risk Assessment? Australia's climate modelling capacity has been degraded. The biggest problems are lack of independent and expert scientific advice, and the lack of coordination across departments and agencies, and a culture of empire-building. Restoring a climate science advisory group to provide high-level, independent advice to the Australian government is a key task. Scientists have been shocked at the pace of change. The rate of warming has accelerated from less than 0.2 dgrees per decade to 0.3 degrees or more per decade. And tipping points are occurring now, including at both poles. Permafrost, boreal forests and the Amazon are becoming net carbon emitters. This year, new research has reaffirmed that 1.5 degrees is too high to prevent tipping points: there is a significant risk of large Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5 degrees, yet we are there right now. And there is a new scientific warning that "1.5 degrees is too high for polar ice sheets". The evidence grows that the 1.5 degrees target was never a safe target for humanity. All of this leads to one conclusion: we are on the edge of a precipice and humanity now needs to throw everything at the climate threat, literally "all hands on deck". The late professor Will Steffen's call to make climate the primary target of policy and economics is now a survival imperative. The business-as-usual delusion embraced by policymakers that climate is just another issue is laid bare by the 1.5 degrees time-bomb. How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine, if Australians' recent experience of more extreme weather and natural disasters - driven by a hotter climate - are an indication, because the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future. Civil engineer Alan Hoban says flood maps around Australia drastically underestimate the impact climate change will have on rainfall due to conservative assumptions about how fast rainfall intensity will increase. "Very few flood maps in south-east Queensland, or even Australia, yet account for these changes," he says. Extreme floods and rain events are often oddly described as a "one-in-a-hundred-year" or a "one-in-five hundred-year" event, suggesting they are unlikely to recur. But then they happen again, within a few years. This shows the assessments of future climate risks are too conservative, and so vulnerable communities and governments are under-prepared. Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires were of an intensity not projected to occur till towards the end of the century. And some heat extremes of the early 2020s were at a level projected for the 2030s. It's a problem created in part by over-reliance on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have a track record of being too conservative. The Australian government is late in delivering its first domestically-focused National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December, and should be the basis for emergency management, resilience and climate adaptation planning. Will it be up to date, and will it give attention to the plausible worst-case (extreme) possibilities, because they result in the greatest damage to people and property? There is reason to worry that the physical reality of accelerating climate disruption will mug Australia's risk assessment and leave us poorly prepared. One foundation for understanding future climate impacts is how quickly temperatures will rise. And that is now a big issue, because the government's assumption was that warming would be in the range of 1.5 to 2 degrees by 2050. And it is still the basis of most international climate policy formulation. Now it is way out of date. Just seven years ago, IPCC scientists projected global average warming of 1.5 degrees would not occur till 2040. But that warming level has now been reached, 15 years earlier than forecast. Both 2023 and 2024 reached 1.5 degrees, and the running average for the last 24 months has been close to 1.6 degrees. For all practical purposes, the warming trend has reached 1.5 degeres. A new World Meteorological Organization report says that Earth will cross this point in just two years, with a "70 per cent chance that the 2025-29 five-year mean will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 average". Acknowledging that a level of warming not expected till 2040 is here right now in 2025 means facing the bitter reality that 15 years have just been "lost" from the emissions-reduction timetable. What does that practically mean? At the 2015 Paris climate policymaking conference, the goal of holding warming to 1.5-2 degrees was agreed to, together with actions (in theory) to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, based on the now-superseded warming projections. So the "lost" 15 years means that this net-zero-by-2050 goal now needs to be net-zero-by-2035. Most policymakers, including the Australian government, seem not to have recognised this. When the penny drops in Canberra that we are already at 1.5 degrees, will that realisation be reflected in the National Climate Risk Assessment? Australia's climate modelling capacity has been degraded. The biggest problems are lack of independent and expert scientific advice, and the lack of coordination across departments and agencies, and a culture of empire-building. Restoring a climate science advisory group to provide high-level, independent advice to the Australian government is a key task. Scientists have been shocked at the pace of change. The rate of warming has accelerated from less than 0.2 dgrees per decade to 0.3 degrees or more per decade. And tipping points are occurring now, including at both poles. Permafrost, boreal forests and the Amazon are becoming net carbon emitters. This year, new research has reaffirmed that 1.5 degrees is too high to prevent tipping points: there is a significant risk of large Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5 degrees, yet we are there right now. And there is a new scientific warning that "1.5 degrees is too high for polar ice sheets". The evidence grows that the 1.5 degrees target was never a safe target for humanity. All of this leads to one conclusion: we are on the edge of a precipice and humanity now needs to throw everything at the climate threat, literally "all hands on deck". The late professor Will Steffen's call to make climate the primary target of policy and economics is now a survival imperative. The business-as-usual delusion embraced by policymakers that climate is just another issue is laid bare by the 1.5 degrees time-bomb. How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine, if Australians' recent experience of more extreme weather and natural disasters - driven by a hotter climate - are an indication, because the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future. Civil engineer Alan Hoban says flood maps around Australia drastically underestimate the impact climate change will have on rainfall due to conservative assumptions about how fast rainfall intensity will increase. "Very few flood maps in south-east Queensland, or even Australia, yet account for these changes," he says. Extreme floods and rain events are often oddly described as a "one-in-a-hundred-year" or a "one-in-five hundred-year" event, suggesting they are unlikely to recur. But then they happen again, within a few years. This shows the assessments of future climate risks are too conservative, and so vulnerable communities and governments are under-prepared. Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires were of an intensity not projected to occur till towards the end of the century. And some heat extremes of the early 2020s were at a level projected for the 2030s. It's a problem created in part by over-reliance on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have a track record of being too conservative. The Australian government is late in delivering its first domestically-focused National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December, and should be the basis for emergency management, resilience and climate adaptation planning. Will it be up to date, and will it give attention to the plausible worst-case (extreme) possibilities, because they result in the greatest damage to people and property? There is reason to worry that the physical reality of accelerating climate disruption will mug Australia's risk assessment and leave us poorly prepared. One foundation for understanding future climate impacts is how quickly temperatures will rise. And that is now a big issue, because the government's assumption was that warming would be in the range of 1.5 to 2 degrees by 2050. And it is still the basis of most international climate policy formulation. Now it is way out of date. Just seven years ago, IPCC scientists projected global average warming of 1.5 degrees would not occur till 2040. But that warming level has now been reached, 15 years earlier than forecast. Both 2023 and 2024 reached 1.5 degrees, and the running average for the last 24 months has been close to 1.6 degrees. For all practical purposes, the warming trend has reached 1.5 degeres. A new World Meteorological Organization report says that Earth will cross this point in just two years, with a "70 per cent chance that the 2025-29 five-year mean will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 average". Acknowledging that a level of warming not expected till 2040 is here right now in 2025 means facing the bitter reality that 15 years have just been "lost" from the emissions-reduction timetable. What does that practically mean? At the 2015 Paris climate policymaking conference, the goal of holding warming to 1.5-2 degrees was agreed to, together with actions (in theory) to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, based on the now-superseded warming projections. So the "lost" 15 years means that this net-zero-by-2050 goal now needs to be net-zero-by-2035. Most policymakers, including the Australian government, seem not to have recognised this. When the penny drops in Canberra that we are already at 1.5 degrees, will that realisation be reflected in the National Climate Risk Assessment? Australia's climate modelling capacity has been degraded. The biggest problems are lack of independent and expert scientific advice, and the lack of coordination across departments and agencies, and a culture of empire-building. Restoring a climate science advisory group to provide high-level, independent advice to the Australian government is a key task. Scientists have been shocked at the pace of change. The rate of warming has accelerated from less than 0.2 dgrees per decade to 0.3 degrees or more per decade. And tipping points are occurring now, including at both poles. Permafrost, boreal forests and the Amazon are becoming net carbon emitters. This year, new research has reaffirmed that 1.5 degrees is too high to prevent tipping points: there is a significant risk of large Amazon forest dieback if global warming overshoots 1.5 degrees, yet we are there right now. And there is a new scientific warning that "1.5 degrees is too high for polar ice sheets". The evidence grows that the 1.5 degrees target was never a safe target for humanity. All of this leads to one conclusion: we are on the edge of a precipice and humanity now needs to throw everything at the climate threat, literally "all hands on deck". The late professor Will Steffen's call to make climate the primary target of policy and economics is now a survival imperative. The business-as-usual delusion embraced by policymakers that climate is just another issue is laid bare by the 1.5 degrees time-bomb.

9 News

a day ago

• 9 News

It was colder than Antarctica for Aussies in one town this morning

Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here Australians in two states woke up to the coldest June morning in 25 years as millions shivered through an icy start to Sunday. One area in New South Wales was colder than parts of Antarctica, the sub-zero temperatures plummeting below Australia's Antarctic research station, Weatherzone reports. In Goulburn, the temperature reached a freezing -10 degrees this morning – which was colder than Davis Station in Antarctica, which hit a minimum of -8.4 degrees. One area in New South Wales was colder than parts of Antarctica. ( This marked Goulburn's iciest morning in eight years and the city's coldest June morning in 25 years. Cooma in NSW's south delivered similarly frosty temperatures with a minimum of -8.6 degrees just after dawn. Meanwhile, in Canberra, temperatures were sitting at a crisp -7.6 degrees before 6am. This was the nation's capital's coldest morning in eight years and also the iciest June morning in 39 years, according to Weatherzone. Davis Station in Antarctica was slightly warmer this morning than Goulburn. ( Records were also broken nearby in Tuggeranong, which had its coldest morning since 2018 with a cool -7.5 degrees. Tuggeranong's temperature today also broke a 25-year record. Australians in Forbes, Cowra, Temora and Young woke up to sub-zero temperatures today too. Australia's south-east is being served some unusually cold June temperatures this weekend thanks to a high-pressure system hovering around the region. The cooler weather is expected to move east later today. Minimum temperatures are forecast to warm slightly from Tuesday onwards in ACT and NSW. CONTACT US Auto news:Is this the next Subaru WRX? Mysterious performance car teased.

7NEWS

2 days ago

• 7NEWS

Tasmanians take the plunge as Australia marks the annual Winter Solstice and shortest day of the year

Winter solstice has arrived — the day Australia experiences its shortest amount of daylight in the whole calendar year. Each winter solstice, thousands of swimmers in Tasmania turn out to mark the day with a freezing dip in Hobart's beach. More than 3,000 people took part in the event on Saturday morning, which is also the final event for Hobart's Dark Mofo winter feast festival. Saturday is the day the Southern Hemisphere is officially at its furthest tilt away from the sun, meaning all Australians experience a much shorter day, followed by the longest night into Sunday. At the same time, the Northern Hemisphere is celebrating the opposite, with the longest amount of daylight followed by the shortest night. Earth is currently sitting at a tilt of 23 degrees, meaning the Southern Hemisphere is the furthest away from the sun it will get all year. Earth rotates around an axis —a line from the North Pole to the South Pole, through the centre of the Earth once every 24 hours and we orbit the Sun once every year. Our rotation axis is tilted relative to the plane of our orbit around the Sun. The hours of daylight Australians see today, also may vary today, with BOM expecting those who are more south to experience a shorter day. Hobart, for example, only sees around nine hours of daylight at the winter solstice — but 15 hours of daylight at the summer solstice. While in Darwin and other Queensland towns at the top of Australia, daylight hours can vary from 11.5 hours of daylight at the winter solstice to about 12.5 hours of daylight at the summer solstice. The change to the amount of daylight Australians experience on each solstice can also have a significant impact on sleeping patterns with health experts encouraging people to avoid sleeping in so they can maintain their body clock.