Contributed by Joe Montero

The climate has been mostly off the radar lately. It was once a big part of the national debate. Today, the big issues are the cost of living, the threat of war, and of course, the slaughter in Gaza. There are the heightened tensions threatened a slide into war. These are important. But it doesn’t mean that the climate is less so. Nature keeps on reacting to what humanity is doing to the planet.

A heatwave across most of Australia is now hitting home the truth of this. It has been the hottest late winter on record, hitting up to 41.2 Celsius on Wednesday 23 August in the Kimberly region of Western Australia. The temperature has been up in the southeast of the country as well, with temperatures ranging from the low to high twenties. This has since been confirmed by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.

To say this sis unseasonal is abnormal is stating the obvious. The average temperature could reach up to 11 Celsius above normal. Understandably, weather experts are pondering over what might be behind this.

The reality of the weather being experienced is forcing Australia to start talking about the climate again.

One thing is clear. Climate change has been making Australia a hotter place for some time now. This fits in with a more than 1.5 percent increase in the planet’s temperature overall. Evidence shows that the El Nino and La Nina weather patterns are changing. These are the two opposing weather patterns caused by the actions of warmer and colder ocean water, causing a major effect on Earth’s weather.

El Nino and La Nina

Video from EarthScience Western Australia

Changes in the pattern have affected the East Australia Current, which had already seen the water temperature rise more than 4 times the global average by 22021, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This conformed the effects of human caused climate change. The Leeuwin Current across the north, west and south of the continents has been similarly affected.

Australia is warming. No question about it. This has failed to push the political system establishment support for the fossil industry ahead of lifting its action on climate. Climate is rarely even talked about these days.

The latest IPCC report published on 20 March 2023 revealed that the situation is getting worse. Australia’s current heat wave is in line with the prediction. This report does more than analyse the data. It put the evidence together in a way that can make predictions about where we are heading, which can be observed through its Interactive Atlas. The findings and predictions for Australia are backed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

The Interactive Atlas

Video from the IPCC

Today’s unusually hot spell confirms the prediction.

Despite this worsening situation, Australia joins much of the western world in not doing enough. Even the insufficient  Paris Agreement targets haven’t been met. Much of the burden is falling on China, which is easily the world’s leader in the production and use of global renewable technologies. Although Australia has made contribution to this, the effort has been countered by continuing to build fossil fuel extraction, use, and export. Insufficient effort has been put into transforming the economy onto a greener foundation.

Another outcome of insufficient action on climate is the impact on the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has just released a 600-page report. It said the “window of opportunity to secure a positive future” for the reef was “closing rapidly” and the outlook for the ecosystem is “very poor.”

The Biodiversity Council, a not-for-profit expert group of scientists, said “key findings “gloss over the gravity of the situation,” and the tone is “upbeat,” when the content is far less positive. The report puts the responsibility wholly on the global community and relieves the Australian government from doing anything, even though it admitted in the report’s Executive summary that “future warming already locked into the climate system means that further degradation [of the Reef] is inevitable.”

When a government agency downplays its own evidence, it does so for political reasons. The government doesn’t want to know or to hide the truth and its implications. The problem has been caused by a succession of governments.

There is no excuse for the failure of the Australian government to act decisively and strongly enough to make a real difference. There is no excuse for downgrading the importance of climate change. It must become a part of the national conversation once again.

 The state of the economy, the threat of war, and Gaza are intertwined with the deterioration of the climate, associated water and food insecurity, and the reality of growing political instability.