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HITTING HOME: THE COMPOUNDING COSTS OF CLIMATE INACTION CLIMATECOUNCIL.ORG.AU Thank you for supporting the Climate Council. The Climate Council is an independent, crowd-funded organisation providing quality information on climate change to the Australian public. Published by the Climate Council of Australia Limited. ISBN: 978-1-922404-13-8 (print) 978-1-922404-12-1 (digital) Professor Will Steffen © Climate Council of Australia Ltd 2021. Climate Councillor This work is copyright the Climate Council of Australia Ltd. All material contained in this work is copyright the Climate Council of Australia Ltd except where a third party source is indicated. Climate Council of Australia Ltd copyright material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License. To view a copy of this license visit http://creativecommons.org.au. Dr Simon Bradshaw You are free to copy, communicate and adapt the Climate Council of Australia Researcher Ltd copyright material so long as you attribute the Climate Council of Australia Ltd and the authors in the following manner: Hitting home: The compounding costs of climate inaction. Authors: Will Steffen and Simon Bradshaw. — Cover image: Townsville Floods. Andrew Rankin / Australian Associated Press. This report is printed on 100% recycled paper. facebook.com/climatecouncil [email protected] twitter.com/climatecouncil climatecouncil.org.au CLIMATE COUNCIL I Contents Key findings .....................................................................................................................................................................................ii 1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................................................................................1 2. Extreme weather fuelled by climate change .................................................................................................................. 3 2.1 Extreme heat 4 CASE STUDY: Extreme heat in western Sydney 8 CASE STUDY: 2020 Siberian heatwave 9 CASE STUDY: Coral mortality 10 2.2 Intense rainfall 11 CASE STUDY: 2020 Asian monsoon floods 12 2.3 Storms and cyclones 13 CASE STUDY: 2020 North Atlantic hurricane season 16 2.4 Fire 17 CASE STUDY: 2020 US West Coast fires 18 2.5 Drought 19 CASE STUDY: Flash drought 20 BOX 1: Compound disasters 21 3. Abrupt, nonlinear extreme events ................................................................................................................................... 22 3.1 Coral reefs 23 3.2 2019-20 bushfire season 24 4. The cost of inaction – Where we are now compared to ten years ago ................................................................. 27 BOX 2: Hitting home – Intensifying disasters and cascading impacts 31 5. By the numbers ..................................................................................................................................................................... 33 5.1 2019-20 33 5.2 Long-term trends 35 6. Major events in Australia and around the world ..........................................................................................................41 7. We must act with more urgency ...................................................................................................................................... 45 References ......................................................................................................................................................................................49 Image credits ................................................................................................................................................................................. 54 II HITTING HOME: THE COMPOUNDING COSTS OF CLIMATE INACTION Key findings 1 2 2019-20 was an exceptionally intense period for Some extreme weather events show ‘tipping climate-fuelled extreme weather, with heavy point’ behaviour when a critical level of heat or costs felt in Australia and around the world. drought triggers a massive, devastating event. › An extraordinary run of events, including › In 2019-20, we ushered in a new and dangerous era unprecedented fire seasons in Australia and the US, of megafires that ravaged Australia, Brazil, Siberia a record-breaking North Atlantic hurricane season, and the US West Coast. During the massive Black and an astonishing series of heat records, paint a Summer bushfires, we likely crossed a tipping point sobering portrait of our escalating climate crisis. for Australia’s temperate broadleaf and mixed forests. In any typical fire season, 2-3 percent of these forests › Extreme heat events are rapidly on the rise both burn, but in the Black Summer 21 percent burned. here, and overseas. The latest science projects that by 2100, annual deaths from extreme heat › Around half of all hard corals along the Great Barrier worldwide will outstrip all COVID-19 deaths Reef perished during successive mass bleaching recorded in 2020. events in the past five years. We are on track to eliminate all of Australia’s and the world’s tropical › The cost of extreme weather disasters in Australia coral reefs. has more than doubled since the 1970s, reaching $35 billion for the decade 2010-2019. › Australians are five times more likely to be displaced by a climate-fuelled disaster than someone living in Europe. In the Pacific, that risk is 100 times higher. › Australia is surrounded by many countries that are acutely vulnerable to climate impacts. Those unfolding regional impacts may soon become as damaging to Australia as those that strike us directly. KEY FINDINGS III 3 4 Ignoring climate change is deadly. Australians No developed country has more to lose from are now paying the price for our own and the climate change-fuelled extreme weather, or world’s failure to reduce emissions quickly more to gain as the world transforms to a zero- enough or deeply enough. carbon economy, than Australia does. › Governments, like the Australian Government, › We need bold, concerted action across all levels of which have failed to substantially reduce emissions government, business, industry and community over the past decade have sentenced Australians, to reduce Australia’s emissions to net zero as soon and communities worldwide, to a far more as possible, and prepare for worsening extreme dangerous future than if they had responded to weather events. repeated warnings from scientists. › Almost all of Australia’s major trading partners › Due to this past inaction, gradual, measured steps and strategic allies, as well as Australian state are not enough to avoid catastrophe. At this point, and territories, are now committed to net zero only truly transformative action is required. That emissions by around mid-century. This includes means at least halving global emissions over the countries that buy more than 70% of our coal and coming decade, and reaching net zero emissions gas exports. globally by 2040 at the latest. › Australia can position itself as a global powerhouse of renewable energy and clean industries, ensuring our prosperity and security in a post-carbon world. climatecouncil.org.au 1 HITTING HOME: THE COMPOUNDING COSTS OF CLIMATE INACTION 1. Introduction Many will remember 2020 as the year Unprecedented fires, extreme heat, powerful of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet for cyclones and devastating floods all occurred millions of people around the world in 2019-20, capping off a decade in which the virus served as a backdrop to the climate crisis hit hard. another battle as we lived through the most intense period yet of climate- This report outlines the latest science on how fuelled extreme weather. climate change is driving more destructive heatwaves, downpours, cyclones, droughts, fires and other extreme weather events. It highlights significant events in Australia and around the world from the past two years. Taken alone, any one of the events described in this report – from Australia’s Black Summer bushfires to the record- breaking North Atlantic hurricane season, or the remarkable Siberian heatwave – would mark the year as unusual. Taken together, they paint a disturbing portrait of our rapidly escalating climate emergency. There is no doubt that we have entered an era of consequences arising from decades of climate inaction and delay. We are all paying dearly for the failure of governments to respond adequately to repeated warnings from scientists and those on the frontlines of this unfolding crisis. It is now clear that we must learn to live in a new age of megafires and other climate impacts that are locked in over the coming years. It is equally clear that far greater dangers lie ahead if we fail to act with the urgency and determination that the science demands. CHAPTER 01 2 INTRODUCTION As this report shows, communities here The global community could have taken and abroad are already reeling from credible climate action much earlier. unprecedented disasters occurring under a Beginning a decade or two ago, we could temperature rise of around 1.1°C above pre- have taken more gradual, measured steps industrial levels. Every fraction of a degree that avoided the worsening impacts to come. more will result in even more extreme events. That time has passed. At this point, only truly, transformative action will avoid us For Australia, the devastating Black Summer slipping from a crisis towards a full-blown fires, a crippling drought, and yet another catastrophe. That means at least halving mass bleaching of the Great
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