Climate Showdown Looms as Australian Disasters Mount

Australia, the driest inhabited continent, is repeatedly ravaged by bushfires and floods -- costly, life-claiming disasters that scientists warn have been exacerbated by a warming planet. It’s also one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporters and emitters per capita of greenhouse gases. Yet while most Australians insist they want more action to combat climate change, the country’s conservative government -- in power since 2013 -- has resisted moves that might undermine key industries. As this year’s global climate summit known as COP26 approaches, it’s finding itself increasingly isolated.

Its temperature now is 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 30-year average up to 1980. That’s in line with the average for members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Australia’s scientific research body CSIRO says the country is experiencing more frequent hot weather, fewer cold days, shifting rainfall patterns and rising sea levels. It’s predicting climate change will cause longer droughts and more intense cyclones. In the past five years, marine heatwaves have triggered three mass bleaching events -- when coral lose their vibrant colors and turn white -- on the world’s largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef, jeopardizing the health of an attraction that brings in billions of dollars annually in tourist revenue. And global warming likely exacerbated the so-called Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20, which were unprecedented in duration and scale, torching an area about the size of the U.K.