2024 State of the Climate report paints a grim picture of Australia’s future as climate change continues to take its toll.
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00:00Climate change is already happening and the changes being experienced will now become more
00:05frequent into the future. Heat waves, bushfires, intense rainfall, coastal inundation and the time
00:12to recover between events will become shorter. This will likely impact lifestyle choices,
00:18food production and consumption, insurance premiums, energy costs,
00:23health, particularly for the elderly and vulnerable. The long-term trends identified
00:27in the previous reports are continuing. Australia's weather and climate has continued
00:31to change with an increase in extreme heat events, longer fire seasons and sea level rise.
00:37We have also seen some significant new climate records in the past two years.
00:41This includes the extraordinarily low Antarctic sea ice extents that occurred through 2023
00:46and globally 2023 was the warmest year on record. However, Australia's warmest year remains as 2019.
00:53The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is continuing to rise.
00:58However, recent data suggests that emissions from human activities
01:02is stabilising. The consequences of increasing greenhouse gases are warmer weather,
01:08drier conditions in the southeast and southwest of Australia and more days conducive to bushfires.
01:14There's been an increase in extreme fire weather and in the length of the fire season across large
01:19parts of the country, especially in southern Australia. Natural variability will continue
01:24to play a role from year to year, but with an added contribution from climate change.
01:28Extreme drought years, like those we saw in 2017 and 2019, will increasingly be followed
01:34by catastrophic fire weather, such as we experienced during the black summer of 2020,
01:38as the climate system warms.