The national climate risk assessment has painted a challenging and confronting view of the future for Australia under global heating.
The report, released on Monday by the Albanese government, looked at 10 “priority hazards” such as bushfires, flooding and extreme heat and the risks they presented all across Australia’s way of life – from its oceans to its communities and the country’s economy.
Here are five important takeaways from the report.
Everybody and everything will be affected
What’s clear from the report is that every aspect of life in Australia is being disrupted and changed. Nothing is spared, with an overwhelming array of impacts that cut across each other.
The risk to eight “key systems” are assessed in the report, from the economy, food systems and communities to health, national security, First Nations peoples, transport, energy and the natural environment.
Here are just a few examples: electricity infrastructure can be compromised by fire and extreme heat; the annual cost of climate-driven disasters could be $40bn by 2050 even under modest levels of global heating; bushfire smoke and extreme heat could kill many more people, and disasters hit people’s mental health, putting a strain on health services.
The energy and climate change minister, Chris Bowen, used three words to summarise the report – cascading, compounding, concurrent.
“Cascading – it will get worse over time,” he said: “Compounding – each impact of climate change will make another impact worse.
“And concurrent – communities will suffer the impacts of climate change in different ways at the same time and we’ll have a lot to manage.”
Heat-related deaths spiral
Heatwaves are identified as the climate hazard already causing the most deaths, with 1,202 estimated fatalities between 1967 and 2022. But at 2C of global heating, the risks escalate steeply.
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For example, the report suggests annual heat-related deaths would go up by 190% in Sydney and 126% in Melbourne compared with today’s levels.
If global heating is allowed to reach 3C, then heat-related mortality rises by 444% in Sydney and 259% in Melbourne.
At 3C of heating, as many as 2.7m extra days of work are lost in agriculture, construction, manufacturing and mining, hitting productivity.
“Health and social support services may not keep up with more frequent, severe and longer duration events, particularly where the events also compromise critical infrastructure,” the report says.
Expect worsening coastal flooding
Global heating would push up sea levels around the planet as ice sheets and glaciers melt and the warmer ocean expands.
One headline figure from the report is that by 2050, more than 1.5 million people would be living in areas around the country that would be hit by rising sea levels and coastal flooding.
Around Australia, sea levels have on average already risen by 20cm since 1880, adding 15 extra days of coastal flooding. But by mid-century, even with modest warming, there will be a further 24 days of the year affected by coastal floods.
By 2050, the report warns that 18 of the top 20 most at risk regions nationally are in Queensland, particular the south-east and Brisbane.
At 1.5C of global heating, Brisbane would experience coastal floods for 86 days a year – that’s almost three months of flooding. At 3C, Brisbane sees floods 314 days a year.
In Victoria, sea level rise and storm surges could cost the state’s economy $9.4bn a year by 2040 – or 1.73% of gross state product, not allowing for the damage costs to heritage properties or cultural values.
The economic cost of climate change
The report makes clear that the economic costs of worsening climate hazards such as bushfires, storms and floods will be substantial.
According to the report, the costs of extreme weather have more than tripled over the past three decades “with the rate of growth of the financial impact of extreme weather outpacing the rate of economic growth.”
Looking at floods, bushfires, storms, cyclones and hailstorms, the total economic costs of these events, even under moderate levels of warming, are put at $40bn a year by mid-century.
By mid-century, the federal government’s disaster recovery payments alone – not counting state government payments – will have doubled. Insurance premiums spiral and gaps emerge where people are under-insured.
That under-insurance of buildings looks to be a growing problem. The report says 7.5% of all residential buildings are already in “high-risk areas” but by 2030, this rises to 9%. At 3C of global heating, more than one million homes sit in very high-risk areas.
Our natural environment is not coping
Australians share the country with a stunning array of habitats and unique species that have not evolved to live in a country where the climate conditions change so quickly.
“The pace and scale of projected climate change will move beyond the realms of recorded experience, making it difficult to predict outcomes with certainty,” the report says.
Across marine, land and freshwater environments, there has already been recorded signs of ecosystem collapse in at least 17 ecosystems.
In the ocean, coral bleaching events happen more frequently, seagrass meadows struggle to survive and eucalypt forests are put under further pressure.
At 2C of global heating, alpine regions and their unique habitats – not only enjoyed by snow sport enthusiasts – will suffer, with between 20 and 55 fewer days of snow cover and, by 2050, a loss of as much as 90% in snow depth.
Graham Readfearn is Guardian Australia’s environment and climate correspondent
