“TERRIFYING”
Losses in Australian property values are estimated to soar to A$611 billion (US$406 billion) by 2050 and could increase to A$770 billion by 2090.
Should the temperatures increase by 3 degrees Celsius, heat-related deaths could soar by over 400 per cent in the country’s most-populated city of Sydney, the report said.
And Australia’s unique species will be forced to move, adapt to the new conditions or die out, as climate change intensifies, the report added.
Amanda McKenzie, chief executive of the Climate Council NGO, described the report as “terrifying”.
“We can choose a better future by cutting climate pollution harder and faster now,” McKenzie said.
“The first step is legislating the strongest possible 2035 climate target and stopping new polluting projects,” she added.
One of the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporters, Australia has been criticised for treating climate action as a political and economic liability.
The so-called “climate wars” – a years-long domestic fight over emissions policy – were blamed for curtailing progress in cutting heat-trapping carbon emissions.
In recent years, the centre-left Labor government has stepped up efforts to bring down emissions and roll out renewable energy.
But despite its green ambitions, the government continues to approve fossil fuel projects, including granting a 40-year extension to a major liquified gas plant.
The extended lifeline of the North West Shelf project – a sprawling industrial complex of offshore rigs and processing factories pumping out more than 10 million tonnes of liquified gas and petroleum each year – has angered Indigenous and environmental groups.
Bowen said moving to a greener future presented a “complicated and complex” set of challenges and that gas would remain a necessary backup renewable in the future energy mix.
“But we also face that challenge from a position of strength, because we have the best renewable resources in the world,” he added.
