Environment & Energy

Eugene

(61,900 posts) Mon Dec 23, 2019, 07:59 PM Dec 2019

Home affairs warned Australian government of growing climate disaster risk after May election

Source: The Guardian

Home affairs warned Australian government of growing climate disaster risk after May election

Exclusive: department’s brief said ‘coordinated national action’ was needed to ward off increasing disruptions

Josh Taylor
@joshgnosis
Mon 23 Dec 2019 17.00 GMT
Last modified on Mon 23 Dec 2019 21.20 GMT

The government was warned by the Department of Home Affairs after the May election that Australia faced more frequent and severe heatwaves and bushfires, and that livelihoods would be affected without effective action on climate change.

The department’s incoming government brief to the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, warned of “disasters” exacerbated by climate change.

“The physical effects of climate change, population growth, and urbanisation mean that without effective action more Australians’ livelihoods will be impacted by disasters into the future and the cost of those disasters will continue to grow,” the brief stated.

“Coordinated national action to drive efforts to reduce these risks and improve national resilience is required.”

The brief, obtained under freedom of information, said disasters were only going to get worse.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/24/home-affairs-warned-australian-government-of-growing-climate-disaster-risk-after-may-election

3 replies

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Home affairs warned Australian government of growing climate disaster risk after May election (Original Post) Eugene Dec 2019 OP

I'm not sure what kind of "coordinated national action" they mean. The_jackalope Dec 2019 #1

California is the test case for the United States hatrack Dec 2019 #2

This defacto7 Dec 2019 #3

The_jackalope

(1,660 posts)

1. I'm not sure what kind of "coordinated national action" they mean.

Reply to Eugene (Original post)

Mon Dec 23, 2019, 09:22 PM

Dec 2019

I'm sorry to be a one-trick pony in the Cynic Circus, but AFAIK CO2 concentrations are not under national (at least not single-nation) control. Going renewable isn't going to reduce CO2 levels over Australia, most of which comes from elsewhere. And the collective Elsewherians aren't doing diddly-squat about it either - global energy-related emissions are rising on average 1% per year.

Population growth could be reduced by various means, but there are already too many people. It's one thing to reduce growth rates, but quite another to reduce absolute numbers...

Urbanization is a foregone conclusion in liberal democracies, where people can choose where they want to live.

Adaptation might help, but with fires ringing the Australian coast, and deserts inland, where you gonna adapt to?

Maybe they should start raking the bush???

Australia is a canary in the climate coal mine, and it's lying on the bottom of the cage twitching.

hatrack

(59,587 posts)

2. California is the test case for the United States

Reply to The_jackalope (Reply #1)

Mon Dec 23, 2019, 09:50 PM

Dec 2019

Australia is the test case for the rest of the developed world.

defacto7

(13,485 posts)

3. This

Reply to The_jackalope (Reply #1)

Mon Dec 23, 2019, 10:10 PM

Dec 2019

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