Cost of years of inaction on climate change is now revealed

In recent weeks, alarming glimpses into the contents of the federal government’s National Climate Risk Assessment have leaked out. National environment and climate editor Nick O’Malley reported this month that one insider had briefed former Fire and Rescue NSW commissioner-turned-climate campaigner Greg Mullins on some of its predictions. “Horrifying,” was how Mullins described what he’d heard. He feared the data was so shocking that the government would water it down.

On Monday, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen released the assessment, and it pulls no punches.

The picture it paints of Australia’s future is grim, with escalating effects at each of three global levels: 1.5 degrees, 2 degrees and 3 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels. The global level is now 1.2 degrees.

The assessment acknowledges we are already experiencing the effects of climate change. If warming continues, it warns, tipping points may come abruptly. Meteorologists will no longer be able to rely on weather records to make predictions to guide us through this predicament.

Severe weather events will occur with more frequency and ferocity. Soaring heat deaths, rising seas and widespread coastal flooding lie ahead.

The report brings home a truth that those not paying attention to the science may not have grasped: a mere 0.5 or one-degree increase in Earth’s warming is likely to have a massive impact on our everyday lives.

For example, Sydney’s experience of coastal flooding sits at 31 days a year. At 1.5 degrees of warming, that would increase to 85 days; and at three degrees, it would rise to more than 300 days.

Another example: at 1.5 degrees of warming, the bread basket Mallee and Sunraysia regions of northwest Victoria and southern NSW would experience an increase of 7 per cent in the time spent in drought each year. At three degrees, this escalates to 33 per cent.

There is a strategic logic to releasing this dire assessment just before the government announces its 2035 emissions reduction target, expected by the end of the week.

The report warns that the outcomes it outlines are not inevitable, but are its best assessments of what would happen if the nation failed to halt warming or adequately prepare for its impacts. It is ammunition for action. (And a shield against any Coalition campaign against the costs of acting.)

What remains to be seen is whether the government’s target is up to the challenge its own risk assessment presents.

The Climate Change Authority, under the leadership of former NSW Liberal minister Matt Kean, delivered its recommendations on the 2035 emissions goal on Friday. Its recommended figure is under wraps, but was expected to sit in the 65-75 per cent range.

The Herald has argued for ambitious targets. Too much time has been lost as politicians argue over the fact of climate change, which has been scientifically known for decades.

That we are now in a situation where holding warming to 1.5 degrees is considered a win, and planning for 3 degrees is a matter of due diligence rather than the stuff of fiction, is a profound regret for us all.

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