The reports authors, which include Professor Will Steffen, the inaugural director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, warned that Australia will continue to warm up throughout the 21st century and experience increasingly severe impacts. But it is not too late to stop the worst case predictions from coming true. "Whether or not extreme heat becomes even worse during the second half of the century depends on whether the world, including Australia as one of the 15 largest emitters, can rapidly and deeply reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a carbon-neutral global economy by mid-century," the report says. If present rates of greenhouse gas emissions continue, large areas of Australia's interior would become uninhabitable while, in NSW, the current one-in-50 year extreme heat event would occur every five years. But if greenhouse gas emissions are cut very rapidly and deeply then the rise in temperature increases could be minimised. The Climate Council is an independently crowd-funded organisation. It took over the work of the Climate Commission, the independent body set up in 2011 by the then Labor government, which was abolished by the Coalition after it came to office in 2013. Despite Australia's commitment to decrease its production of greenhouse gas emissions at the Paris international climate change talks in 2015, our emissions rose by 0.8 per cent last year. "This rise puts into serious doubt whether even Australia's very weak emissions reductions target of 26 to 28 per cent by 2030 can be achieved," the report warned. "With Australia's emissions continuing to rise, it is clear that the federal government's current climate policy is failing. Australia needs to transition rapidly to cheap, clean, renewable energy to reduce our emissions as opposed to 'clean coal' plants." The federal government said last month that coal-fired power stations could be eligible for funding from Australia's $10 billion green bank. In what would represent a significant weakening of the country's environmental financing rules, Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg confirmed the government is considering issuing a new ministerial directive to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to put investment in so-called "clean coal" on the table. Professor Steffen told a press conference on Wednesday morning that the government needed to realise that coal fired power stations were "20th century thinking". "I hope we realise, like any big technological breakthrough, going to renewable energy and smart systems is the way of the 21st century...Rather than fighting this transition we need to support them [forms of renewable energy] and embrace them and make them work to our benefit." Australia's original climate change-focused think tank and lobby group will shut after it failed to replace the multimillion-dollar bequest it relied on. The Climate Institute, set up in 2005, will close in June. It comes 18 months after the institute called for public donations to offset the lapsing of the foundational support set up by Rupert Murdoch's niece, Eve Kantor, and her husband, farmer Mark Wootton. Mr Wootton, also the institute's chairman, said he was proud that the institute had built understanding of a complex issue during a tumultuous time in Australian public life. It played a central role in the campaign for a limit on greenhouse gas emissions, and in bringing together groups representing business, investors, unions and the welfare sector to push for change. It also focused on improving understanding of the importance of climate risk-management in the financial sector, particularly superannuation funds. Loading Stephanie Peatling is a senior writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
The Australian 2016/17 summer has seen some of the hottest temperatures ever experienced in the country. Scientists called it "the angry summer " and said such heatwaves are becoming the new normal. A report from Labor says that than 205 records were broken in 2016/17 summer , with the 2016/17 summer being Queensland 's second hottest summer on record, and Sydney 's hottest ever the century . The extreme summers will worsen throughout the rest of mid-century "unless the world can rapidly and deeply reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a carbon-neutral global economy by mid-century ," the report says.