The Coming Famine - Julian Cribb

Surviving the 21st Century - Julian Cribb

AUTHOR Julian Cribb AM ATSE is an Australian science writer and author of seven books on the human existential emergency.  He is Co-founder, Council for the Human Future.  Julian Cribb's latest book is How to Fix a Broken Planet (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

The existing world food crisis is deepening while dangers of famine in the short-term are escalating due to fractures in agricultural supply chains caused by conflict in West Asia. 

However, these short-term crises are superimposed on a far graver, deeper and longer-running risk of a collapse in global food production due to the remorseless combination of climate change and losses of soil, water and biodiversity.

“Acute food insecurity and malnutrition levels remain alarmingly high and deeply entrenched, with crises increasingly concentrated in a core group of countries,” says the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2026. 

Over 266 million people in 47 countries are facing acute food scarcity, a number which has doubled in ten years. Overall, 690 million people are malnourished.

Meanwhile the Gulf War is menacing farm production even in countries that deem themselves food secure, by choking off up to >30 per cent of world fertiliser supplies and boosting prices beyond many farmers’ ability to pay. The US, for example, depends on imports from the Gulf for >25% of its fertiliser needs - and is thus shooting itself in the bread-basket by combining with Iran to blockade them.

The impact of the fertiliser choke-off is already affecting crop plantings across the northern hemisphere, heralding sharp rises in global consumer food prices before the end of 2026. The FAO food price index has already started to climb in anticipation.

Figure 1. Key fertiliser products originating from the Persian Gulf. Source: IFPRI

However, these are but surface phenomena in the picture of growing global food insecurity due to human overpopulation, overconsumption and their catastrophic impacts on soil, water, climate and biodiversity.

Soils

A silent disaster is unfolding in the world’s food producing soils: erosion, loss of organic carbon, nutrient depletion, salinization, acidification, chemical pollution, loss of soil biodiversity, soil sealing and urban sprawl. To these have been lately added two more: the damage caused by wars and the destruction of large areas of productive soils by mining and energy extraction.

The soil supplies 94% of humanity’s food needs, and its dramatic decline foreshadows the approaching end of our ability to maintain an agriculture-based food supply within the present century. A recent study noted around half of the Earth’s topsoils are degraded, and this will rise to 95% by 2050.

Farming cannot exist without topsoil to sustain it, and the global estimated soil loss in 2015 was around 28-38 billion tonnes a year to water, tillage, wind erosion (often due to overgrazing). However, these numbers are over a decade old, while the impacts of climate, land clearing and deforestation have all surged. Also, they take no account of the global decline in soil fertility, health and structure.

Few consumers and almost no governments are aware of the catastrophic rate at which modern industrial farming is devouring its topsoil. Many farmers are aware – but are trapped by economics into furthering the destruction. Tragically, industrial farming has now become a form of mining that continues until the resource is exhausted.

Water

Farming currently uses 72% of the world’s available freshwater - but colossal competing demand from burgeoning megacities, IT and AI, the energy and mining sectors, along with the collapse of river systems, groundwater and glaciers means that there will be less and less water available to grow our food and supply our cities. 

At the same time climate change is creating fiercer droughts and floods that devastate farm crops and land.

To feed humanity by the mid-century, the World Bank estimates will require an extra 70% more water. This means it will take 20% more fresh water than the Earth can supply, resulting in a colossal food shortfall.

As these water shortages intensify they will have four main effects: reduced crop production, food scarcity, soaring consumer prices, mass migration and escalating conflict over dwindling food, land and water.

Environment

Agricultural biodiversity – the rich variety of crops, livestock breeds, soil organisms, insects and wild plant relatives that underpin our food systems – is vanishing faster than most people realize warns the Environmental Studies Institute. This directly threatens the ecosystem services – such as pollination, natural pest control, soil health and fertility – that farming depends on to function.

The elements causing the destruction are principally land clearing and the indiscriminate use of 5 million tonnes of agricultural pesticides a year. These pesticides are increasingly deadly – up to 10,000 times more toxic than DDT, for example – killing honeybees and many insects that sustain birds, fish, frogs and other wildlife which in turn control farm pests.

Modern farming systems are thus steadily eliminating the natural resources which make farming possible.

Climate

The world food supply is critically vulnerable to climate impacts – and becoming more so with each passing year. 

As global temperatures rise, the world will start to witness large-scale regional harvest failures due to drought, floods, storms and heat, building steadily towards major famines in the second half of the 21^st century.

Figure 2. Impact of rising degrees of global warming. Source: Roger Hallam. Chart by Gregor Aisch.

To its own detriment, agriculture and food production generate up to 30% of the world’s total climate emissions. This means that every time a farmer starts a tractor today, he is cutting into a future farmer’s harvest, due to the prolonged climate impacts. 

Through fossil fuels, agriculture has evolved into an engine of self-destruction.

World food collapse

Where all this is leading is a collapse of the world food system, universal famine and the deaths of several billion children, women and men. Food prices may well reach the point where they bring down the entire world economy.

The latest – of many – expert views on this unsavoury issue comes from the UK Institute of Actuaries, whose latest report states baldly that humans are making the planet insolvent.

“We are currently managing our global natural assets with a level of negligence that would be unthinkable in any other sector of the economy. We are treating a finite, interconnected ledger of biological wealth as an infinite extraction fund, and the maths simply no longer adds up,” they say. “We are pushing multiple Earth system processes beyond safe operating limits, moving toward tipping points where the damage becomes irreversible on any human timescale.”

The report details a wide range of both chronic and acute risks to the global food system, with severe ramifications for society, the economy and world peace. These occur in the short term and compound in the longer term. Furthermore, it notes widespread failure by policymakers to respond to most of them.

Actuaries are not a profession prone to exaggeration or hyperventilation. If they say “We got a problem”, then we got a problem.

Unfortunately, owing to generous food surpluses in most countries created by agricultural mining of the planet and the destruction of its food system resources, most consumers and governments remain oblivious of the scale of the danger and are doing little or nothing to avoid it. 

This adds to the likelihood of future famines and mass death.

Is there a solution? Certainly. It’s called renewable food. But right now, very few people or companies and almost no governments are taking it seriously.

We will reap the harvest we sow.

Figure 3. Food risks in the short and medium term. Source: Institute of Actuaries Large Image

The Coming Famine was also the title of a book I wrote back in 2008 (University of California Press), foreshadowing the dangers of an unsustainable food system. Many of its predictions are now coming true. I discussed the solutions in a subsequent book Food or War (Cambridge 2019).

Julian Cribb Articles

• The greatest threat to global security
• Turning Waste Into Wealth
• Up to our eyeballs in 💩💩💩
• Plasticide: a crime against humanity Our Rising Oceans
• Will climate change put women in the ascendant?
• When the water runs out...
• The great dying
• Australia issues ‘terrifying’ climate warning
• 'Died of a delusion': the fate of modern civilisation?
• Collapse is near, scientists warn
• De-icing the Earth: a fatal human choice. 
• Rivers of Death
• Unlike politicians, thermometers do not lie
• Welcome to BunkerWorld: Home of the rich and fearful
• Wisdom of the elders
• The black work of Big Oil
• Stealing the Breath of Life
• The Earth Uncloaked - a catastrophe in slow motion 
  
• Military experts warn of climate wars
• Tackling the Earth Emergency
• A distracted world marches steadily towards catastrophe

The Climate Crisis is a Health Crisis - Gregory Andrews

Lyrebird Dreaming - Gregory Andrews

Author Gregory Andrews is: Founder and Managing Director of Lyrebird Dreaming A former Australian Ambassador and High Commissioner in West Africa Australia’s first Threatened Species Commissioner A leader in Indigenous policy

Climate change is usually talked about as an environmental issue. 

Coral reefs, glaciers, bushfires and endangered species etc. All of that matters enormously. But it's also increasingly missing the point. 

The climate crisis is now fundamentally a public health emergency.

This week, a panel of leading international experts convened by the World Health Organization urged it to formally declare the climate crisis a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” - the same highest-level warning mechanism used for pandemics like COVID-19 and Mpox. And honestly, they’re right.

Because the climate crisis is no longer a distant future threat about penguins, polar bears and rising seas. It's already making people sick. It's already killing people. And it's already overwhelming health systems around the world.

• Heatwaves now kill thousands of people every year across Europe, India, North America and Australia.
• Smoke from bushfires triggers asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes.
• Floods contaminate water supplies and spread disease.
• Changing temperatures are expanding mosquito-borne illnesses like dengue fever into places that never previously had to deal with them. 
• And mental health impacts - from eco-anxiety to trauma after disasters - are rising rapidly.

 And then there’s the air pollution. The same fossil fuels driving climate change are also poisoning the air we breathe. 

According to the WHO, air pollution causes around 7 million premature deaths globally every year. Think about that for a moment. Governments like Australia's are effectively using taxpayers money to subsidise industries whose pollution contributes to millions of early deaths.

Despite claiming to take climate and health seriously, Australia still provides billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies every year - through fuel tax credits, exploration incentives and other support mechanisms. 

While hospitals struggle for funding and ambulance ramping statistics dominate news headlines, we're still underwriting the industries making us sick in the first place. It’s the political equivalent of subsidising cigarettes while warning people not to smoke!

The irony is that serious climate action would produce enormous public health benefits almost immediately:

• Cleaner air. 
• More walkable cities. 
• Better public transport. 
• Less heat stress. 
• More green space. 
• Lower rates of respiratory and cardiovascular disease. 
• Healthier diets. 
• More active lifestyles.

Climate action is not just about avoiding catastrophe in 2050. It’s about improving human health right now. This is also why the language matters. Calling the climate crisis an “environmental issue” subtly frames it as soft and optional - something to balance against “economic priorities”. 

But calling it what it is - a public health emergency - changes the conversation entirely. Because governments are supposed to respond to public health emergencies urgently. And public health is recognised as an economic priority.

When COVID hit, governments mobilised trillions of dollars, rewrote laws, held daily press conferences and transformed entire economies almost overnight. Yet climate action, which the WHO already describes as the "greatest health threat facing humanity", is still at best treated as another policy debate.

Part of the reason is psychological. Pandemics feel immediate and visible. The climate crisis is unfolding more slowly and unevenly. But the cumulative death toll from heat, smoke, pollution, hunger, disasters and disease will dwarf most modern pandemics if emissions continue unchecked. And unlike many health emergencies, this one is being knowingly fuelled. 

We understand the cause. We understand the consequences. And we already have many of the solutions. What’s missing is political courage.

Australia especially should understand this. We're already seeing worsening bushfires, floods, heatwaves and disease risks. Our health systems are increasingly exposed to climate shocks. Regional communities are on the frontline. And Aboriginal communities - who often contribute least to emissions - are disproportionately exposed to climate impacts, including threats to Country, food systems, housing and cultural wellbeing.

Yet instead of treating climate change like the public health emergency it is, our politics still treats fossil fuel expansion as economic common sense. Future generations will look back on this period with disbelief and anger. 

They will wonder how governments could simultaneously warn about climate danger while subsidising the industries causing it. They will wonder how we normalised mass pollution deaths. And they will wonder why we waited so long to call a public health emergency exactly what it was.

Because this isn't just an environmental crisis anymore. It’s a health crisis. And the emergency department's waiting room is already full.

Gregory Andrews Climate Change Articles

• The Science Is In: Global Warming Is Accelerating
• While We Watch Iran, the Planet Keeps Burning
• Have your say on Canberra’s next Climate Strategy: It will be make or break
• Science Warns of Future Where Billions Bake
• Two Years to 1.7°C: the “Prediction Game” We Can’t Afford to Lose
• Emergency Photos Ops Aren't Climate Leadership
• Why Fascists Reject Climate Science
• Don’t Be Distracted: Earth’s Life Support Systems Are Collapsing
• Diesel rebates for miners and a new EV tax? Australia’s climate policy double-think
• What Gas is That? Get to Know Your Climate Pollutants

The heat is rewriting Australia faster than politics can respond - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Australia is already living inside a climate scientists once feared

Key Points

Australia’s warming trend now sits well beyond historical natural variability 1 Marine heatwaves and coral bleaching are reshaping the Great Barrier Reef faster than recovery cycles allow 2 Heatwaves remain Australia’s deadliest climate disaster despite receiving less public attention 3 Floods and bushfires are exposing planning systems built for a cooler climate 4 The energy transition is accelerating unevenly through political conflict and infrastructure bottlenecks 5 Scientists increasingly warn that Australia is underestimating compound climate risks and social disruption 6

The summer that stopped feeling temporary

By mid-afternoon the air above western Sydney shimmered like distorted glass. Asphalt softened beneath tyres. Ambulance crews carried elderly residents from brick homes that had trapped heat since dawn.

The Bureau of Meteorology no longer describes these events as anomalies. Scientists now speak about Australia’s climate in the language of systems under strain. The country has warmed by roughly 1.5C since 1910, but averages conceal the sharper reality unfolding across the continent.

Nights are warming faster. Marine heatwaves linger longer. Fire seasons bleed into one another. Inland towns across New South Wales and the Northern Territory already experience temperatures approaching the limits of safe outdoor labour.

For decades climate scientists framed extreme heat as a future threat. Attribution science changed that. Researchers can now calculate how much more likely a disaster became because of greenhouse emissions. Heatwaves that once sat at the edge of statistical possibility now arrive with unsettling regularity. ¹

Heat kills quietly. Bushfires produce spectacle. Floods leave visible wreckage. Heatwaves pass without television helicopters overhead, despite remaining Australia’s deadliest climate disaster.

When the models began catching up with reality

Climate models once treated compound disasters as relatively rare overlaps. Scientists now believe many earlier projections underestimated the interaction between drought, extreme heat and intense rainfall.

The Black Summer fires became a turning point. Researchers concluded climate change significantly increased the likelihood of the extreme fire weather conditions that stretched from Queensland through New South Wales and Victoria during 2019 and 2020.

Entire valleys appeared to inhale before fire fronts arrived. Pyrocumulonimbus storms carried embers kilometres ahead of flames. Forests burned with such intensity they generated their own weather systems.

Fire agencies increasingly confront overlapping emergencies rather than isolated seasons. A severe flood year may follow drought with little ecological recovery in between. Insurance losses now accumulate across multiple hazards simultaneously.

Scientists also worry about what remains difficult to model. Abrupt ocean circulation shifts. Simultaneous crop failures. Cascading infrastructure breakdowns. Many projections still rely heavily on median scenarios despite observed warming tracking close to higher-emissions pathways. ⁶

The floodplain remembers even when governments do not

In Lismore the flood markers remain etched into shopfronts years after the water receded. Residents who rebuilt once found themselves rebuilding again.

Warmer oceans now load the atmosphere with greater moisture. During major east coast systems, rainfall falls harder and over shorter periods. Studies examining recent Australian floods suggest many one-in-100-year events no longer reflect contemporary climate risk.

Yet floodplain planning still relies heavily on historical assumptions drawn from older climate baselines. Housing developments continue spreading into vulnerable corridors because retreat remains politically toxic and economically disruptive.

Insurers already operate with a harsher understanding of climate exposure than many public planning systems acknowledge. Premiums across northern Australia continue climbing sharply. In some coastal regions, residents quietly discover coverage disappearing altogether. ⁴

The reef is bleaching faster than it can recover

From the air, sections of the Great Barrier Reef resemble pale scars spreading through turquoise water.

The reef has now experienced repeated mass bleaching events within less than a decade. Scientists once expected severe bleaching perhaps once every several decades. The intervals are collapsing. ²

Marine heatwaves surrounding Australia are intensifying as oceans absorb most of the excess planetary heat generated by greenhouse emissions. Recent bleaching events struck coral systems already weakened by previous heat stress, cyclones and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks.

Researchers have become more cautious about narratives of recovery. Coral ecosystems can rebound after disturbance, but repeated bleaching reduces the time available for regeneration. Some species recover quickly. Others disappear.

Scientists increasingly describe marine heatwaves as Australia’s underreported climate emergency. Unlike bushfires, they remain largely invisible to people on land.

The politics of delay are colliding with physics

Australia speaks two climate languages at once.

Internationally, governments promote renewable investment and emissions targets. Domestically, coal and gas expansion continues through new approvals and export infrastructure.

The contradiction sits at the centre of Australia’s political economy. Fossil fuel exports remain deeply woven into state revenues, regional employment and national trade balances. Communities across the Hunter Valley and central Queensland understand decarbonisation not as an abstract moral question but as a threat to livelihoods built over generations.

Meanwhile, renewable construction accelerates unevenly across the electricity grid. Transmission projects face local opposition over land access and environmental impacts. Supply chain constraints slow deployment.

Scientists argue the central problem is no longer technological feasibility. Australia possesses extraordinary renewable potential through solar, wind and critical minerals. The problem is speed. ⁵

The burden is not shared equally

Climate risk in Australia follows existing inequality.

Low-income suburbs with sparse tree cover routinely experience higher urban temperatures than wealthier coastal districts. Renters possess limited capacity to retrofit homes for heat resilience. Remote Indigenous communities face water insecurity, failing infrastructure and limited healthcare access during extreme weather.

After disasters, recovery money flows unevenly. Wealthier households rebuild faster. Insurance gaps widen. Mental health effects linger for years.

Researchers studying climate anxiety among younger Australians describe a generation shaped by recurring catastrophe. Many reached adulthood through drought, bushfire smoke, floods and coral bleaching.

Repeated emergencies can erode trust in institutions, particularly when governments appear trapped in short electoral cycles. ³

Preparing for a climate that no longer resembles the past

The most difficult conversations in Australian climate science now concern habitability.

What happens to regional economies built around shrinking water supplies? Which coastal communities retreat first? How do cities function through sustained heat exceeding infrastructure design limits?

Researchers examining a 3C warmer Australia describe profound shifts in agriculture, insurance markets, migration and national security. Parts of the continent may become economically difficult to insure long before they become physically unliveable.

The Murray-Darling Basin already reveals the tension between water scarcity, ecological decline and agricultural demand. Snowpack in the Australian Alps continues declining. Desalination plants once framed as emergency assets increasingly resemble permanent infrastructure.

Scientists remain careful about predicting collapse. Australia retains immense adaptive capacity and institutional strength. Yet many researchers privately express frustration that public debate still treats climate change as a distant environmental issue rather than a restructuring force touching housing, labour, health and finance simultaneously.

What the country chooses to see

Near sunset the heat finally lifts from western Sydney. Children return to parks. Freight trains resume normal speed. The city exhales.

Australia still possesses choices that many nations do not. Vast renewable resources. Scientific expertise. Relative institutional stability. A population concentrated along coastlines rather than scattered across fragile interior regions.

But climate scientists increasingly speak about narrowing margins rather than open futures. Each fraction of warming carries consequences that compound through ecosystems, infrastructure and public health.

The danger is not only physical. It is political and psychological. Democracies struggle to sustain attention across slow emergencies unfolding unevenly over decades.

For years Australians imagined climate disruption as something approaching from elsewhere. Fire seasons, bleaching reefs and repeated floods have altered that perception. The continent is no longer waiting for climate change. It is negotiating with it daily.

References

1. CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, State of the Climate 2024
2. Australian Institute of Marine Science, Coral Bleaching Events
3. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Heatwaves and Health
4. Climate Council, Floods Fires and Climate Risk in Australia
5. Australian Government, Transforming Australia’s Energy System
6. IPCC Sixth Assessment Synthesis Report
7. Australian Government National Climate Risk Assessment
8. The Guardian, Fifth Mass Coral Bleaching Event in Eight Years
9. NASA Earth Observatory, Heat Stress on the Great Barrier Reef
10. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Climate Change and Australian Households

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Darwin: The City Where The Air Itself Is Becoming A Risk - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Darwin is already testing the limits of human endurance

Key Points

Extreme heat and humidity are reshaping daily life across Darwin 1 Older housing and rising energy costs are deepening cooling inequality 2 Critical infrastructure faces mounting stress from cyclones and sea-level rise 3 Climate pressures are altering public health risks across northern Australia 4 Darwin sits between renewable ambition and fossil fuel dependence 5 Questions about long-term habitability are moving from activism into policy discussions 6

By mid-morning the humidity has already soaked through shirts along Smith Street, Darwin.

Tradies retreat into utes with engines idling. Parents hurry children between patches of shade outside schools in Casuarina. 

The city still moves, but slower now, with the caution of a place learning new physical limits.

Darwin has always lived with heat. Cyclone Tracy remains part of the city’s mythology, alongside monsoonal storms, salt-heavy air and the long wet season. 

Yet scientists increasingly describe the Top End not as merely tropical, but as one of Australia’s clearest laboratories for climate adaptation. 

Heat here is becoming something more complicated than discomfort. It is turning into infrastructure stress, public health risk and economic pressure.

Researchers tracking humid heat warn that northern Australia faces rising exposure to conditions approaching dangerous wet-bulb thresholds, where sweat no longer cools the body effectively. Even healthy adults struggle once humidity and temperature combine beyond certain levels. Outdoor labour, sport and ordinary movement become physiologically hazardous.¹

The suburbs where heat settles

Satellite mapping by CSIRO has identified Darwin’s hottest urban zones with uncomfortable precision. Industrial districts around Winnellie and East Arm absorb and radiate heat through asphalt, warehouses and sparse tree cover. New outer suburban developments remain exposed until canopy growth catches up with expansion.²

The geography of heat increasingly overlaps with social vulnerability. Public housing stock built decades ago often depends on ageing insulation, poor ventilation and expensive cooling systems. Many low-income renters live in properties designed for a different climate reality.

Electricity costs sharpen the divide. Air conditioning is not a luxury in Darwin. It is basic survival infrastructure. Yet households already under financial pressure often ration cooling despite dangerous conditions.

Hospitals preparing for the hotter decades

Inside Royal Darwin Hospital, climate change is already operational rather than theoretical. Heatwaves increase dehydration, kidney stress and cardiovascular emergencies. Humidity complicates recovery for elderly patients and people with chronic disease.

Public health researchers also expect mosquito-borne diseases to shift as temperatures and rainfall patterns evolve. Dengue, Japanese encephalitis and Ross River virus each respond differently to changing humidity, flooding and mosquito habitat distribution.⁴

Remote communities face sharper exposure. Many clinics operate with limited staffing, fragile supply chains and ageing infrastructure vulnerable to flooding or prolonged outages.

Insurance anxiety and the economics of risk

Darwin’s property market still projects confidence. Waterfront apartments continue rising. Defence spending fuels sections of the economy. Population forecasts still assume growth.

Behind the optimism sits a quieter conversation inside insurance and finance industries. Northern Australia already carries some of the country’s highest insurance premiums because of cyclone exposure. Climate modelling threatens to widen the gap further as risks become more expensive to underwrite.³

The gas hub and the renewable promise

From East Arm Wharf the contradictions become visible in steel and concrete. Massive gas infrastructure sits beside rhetoric about renewable transition and green industry.

The Northern Territory government promotes Darwin as both a future renewable export hub and a centre for expanded gas production. Hydrogen ambitions compete with large fossil fuel developments linked to the Beetaloo Basin and offshore gas projects.⁵

A frontline for climate migration

Policy analysts increasingly discuss Darwin as both climate refuge and climate risk zone. Southern Australian cities face worsening bushfires and water pressure. Low-lying Pacific nations confront rising seas and displacement.

Federal governments rarely speak publicly about large-scale climate migration planning. Quietly, however, defence strategists and regional planners model scenarios involving increased humanitarian operations, infrastructure strain and population movement through northern Australia.⁶

The politics of acknowledging limits

Darwin’s climate politics remain shaped by tension between economic development and scientific warning. Territory governments continue supporting major gas expansion while simultaneously promoting adaptation and emissions targets.

Indigenous communities across the Top End frequently describe climate change not as future threat but as present disruption. Altered fire regimes, saltwater intrusion and ecological shifts affect cultural continuity as much as economics.

Conclusion

Darwin is not collapsing. Construction cranes still rise above the harbour. Cafes remain crowded during the dry season. Defence spending continues flowing north. The city retains the improvisational resilience that followed Cyclone Tracy half a century ago.

Yet climate change is altering the assumptions beneath ordinary life. Heat increasingly shapes housing quality, health outcomes, labour productivity and infrastructure planning. Adaptation is no longer about preparing for distant scenarios. It is becoming a permanent governing condition.

References

1. Extreme humidity and heat push the human body beyond its limits
2. CSIRO maps Darwin’s hot spots and heat-health vulnerability
3. Actuaries Institute Home Insurance Affordability Update
4. CSIRO Future Climate Projections for Australia
5. Northern Territory net-zero targets questioned amid gas expansion
6. Climate change and future habitability concerns in the Northern Territory

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Brisbane Is Learning That Heat And Water No Longer Arrive Separately - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

When the River remembers
Brisbane’s climate future is arriving faster than the city can rebuild

Key Points

Outer suburbs face dangerous combinations of heat exposure poor housing and weak tree canopy coverage 1 Flood recovery is reshaping insurance affordability and housing inequality across Brisbane 2 Critical infrastructure remains vulnerable to simultaneous climate shocks including heat flooding and power disruption 3 Urban development continues in flood-prone corridors despite escalating climate projections 4 Climate adaptation spending is unevenly distributed between wealthier and lower-income communities 5 Brisbane’s long-term identity may depend on politically difficult decisions about retreat infrastructure and growth 6

Heat on the western fringe

By mid-afternoon the bitumen outside Inala Civic Centre ripples in the light. Bus shelters trap warm air like glasshouses. Inside nearby brick rental homes, curtains stay drawn against another humid day pushing past 35C. 

Residents describe bedrooms that remain hot long after midnight. Ceiling fans move heavy air from one corner to another.

Climate researchers have spent years mapping Brisbane’s urban heat islands. The pattern repeats across outer suburbs with lower incomes, limited tree canopy and older housing stock. 

Forest Lake, Acacia Ridge and parts of Logan record surface temperatures substantially higher than the city’s greener inner suburbs during extreme heat events. ¹ 

The difference is not cosmetic. Ambulance call-outs climb during prolonged heatwaves. Emergency departments absorb more patients with respiratory stress, dehydration and cardiovascular complications.

Brisbane City Council has expanded shade programs and heat-awareness campaigns, yet adaptation remains uneven. Leafier riverside suburbs continue attracting investment in cooling infrastructure and green space while western growth corridors absorb rapid population increases with less established canopy cover. Residents in public housing and older rental properties carry much of the exposure.

Queensland’s minimum housing standards focus heavily on structural safety and ventilation, but advocates argue indoor temperature protections remain weak. Renters often rely on portable air-conditioning units that drive electricity bills higher during the hottest months. Energy insecurity compounds climate vulnerability. Some households reduce cooling to avoid debt. Others retreat to shopping centres libraries or community hubs during severe heat.

Public health researchers increasingly frame heat as a chronic urban emergency rather than a seasonal inconvenience. Long periods above historical averages affect sleep cognitive function and mental health. Repeated disasters intensify stress already carried from the floods of 2011 and 2022. Climate anxiety has become part of ordinary conversation across southeast Queensland.

The river keeps widening

From the top of the Jindalee boat ramp the Brisbane River appears calm enough to erase memory. Mangroves shift against the tide. Cyclists move along the path beside raised homes rebuilt after earlier floods. Yet many residents still measure time against water levels. They remember the brown current reaching staircases and electrical boxes. Some rebuilt twice in little more than a decade.

Brisbane’s geography has always carried flood risk. The difference now is intensity. Rainfall events are becoming heavier and more concentrated. Climate projections indicate warmer oceans will continue loading the atmosphere with moisture. ² 

Updated flood mapping has expanded the number of properties facing higher risk classifications, reshaping insurance calculations and property values.

Insurers increasingly rely on detailed flood databases and modelling systems when setting premiums. In some suburbs, residents report annual insurance costs rising into the thousands or losing flood cover entirely. ⁷ 

The effect falls unevenly across the city. Wealthier households can often elevate homes renovate or absorb higher premiums. Lower-income families face narrower choices.

Development continues across vulnerable corridors despite repeated disasters. Local councils argue flood-resilient building standards reduce exposure. Critics counter that approving additional housing on floodplains deepens long-term risk. The tension reflects Brisbane’s broader housing crisis. Population growth continues. Safe affordable land close to transport remains scarce.

Some planners have begun discussing managed retreat in cautious language. Buyback schemes operate in selected high-risk areas, though political appetite for large-scale relocation remains limited. Retreat challenges the mythology of Queensland growth itself. Few governments want to explain that some suburbs may become progressively harder to insure finance or defend.

Infrastructure built for another climate

During the 2022 floods parts of Brisbane’s transport network fractured almost simultaneously. Rail lines submerged. Roads disappeared under water. Supply chains stalled. In hospitals and aged care facilities emergency generators became essential infrastructure rather than contingency plans.

Brisbane’s electricity network faces a difficult future. Heatwaves increase demand for cooling while severe storms threaten poles substations and transmission lines. Concurrent failures matter more than isolated events. Climate scientists warn that cascading disruptions involving heat flooding and power loss could strain emergency services beyond traditional planning assumptions.

Queensland Health has expanded climate preparedness frameworks, yet frontline staff already describe systems operating near capacity during severe events. Heatwaves increase ambulance response times. Flooding complicates patient transfers and staff access. Smoke from bushfires worsens respiratory admissions. ³ 

The city’s healthcare system was designed around historical climate baselines that no longer hold.

Schools are becoming informal climate shelters. During heatwaves parents collect children early from classrooms with poor cooling. During floods school halls transform into evacuation centres. The burden quietly shifts onto teachers administrators and local volunteers who manage emergencies alongside ordinary responsibilities.

Infrastructure adaptation is expensive and politically awkward because success often looks invisible. New drainage systems underground flood barriers and electricity upgrades lack the visual impact of roads bridges or Olympic precincts. Yet engineers increasingly warn that delayed adaptation costs more than early investment.

The economy of repeated recovery

Brisbane’s economy still depends heavily on construction logistics tourism and property development. All are vulnerable to climate instability. Construction workers already lose hours during extreme heat. Outdoor labour productivity falls sharply once temperatures and humidity climb together. Freight corridors face growing disruption from flooding and severe storms.

Repeated rebuilding has also become an economic model in itself. Billions of public dollars flow into recovery packages insurance claims road repairs and reconstruction after major disasters. ⁴ 

Critics argue governments remain more comfortable funding recovery than imposing stricter development controls before disasters occur.

The insurance industry now acts as a shadow planning authority. Rising premiums influence where people can buy build or remain. Mortgage lenders increasingly consider long-term climate exposure when assessing risk. Economists warn that parts of Brisbane could face gradual property devaluation if insurers retreat further from high-risk suburbs.

Queensland’s renewable energy transition offers opportunities but also contradictions. State governments promote decarbonisation while supporting fossil fuel expansion through export infrastructure and royalties. Brisbane markets itself as a future-facing Olympic city even as transport emissions remain stubbornly high and urban sprawl deepens car dependence.

Green jobs programs continue expanding across energy construction and environmental services. The deeper question concerns stability. Temporary contracts tied to election cycles rarely provide the long-term security associated with industrial transitions of earlier decades.

The politics of selective protection

Climate adaptation often arrives through technical language that obscures political choices. Flood maps, zoning overlays and resilience strategies sound neutral. In practice they determine which suburbs receive protection first and which communities absorb greater risk.

Inner-city riverfront precincts attract substantial infrastructure spending because they hold economic and political value. Western and outer suburban communities frequently depend on slower incremental upgrades. ⁵ 

Researchers examining climate justice in Australian cities repeatedly find that vulnerability overlaps with lower income insecure housing and weaker access to transport and healthcare.

Brisbane City Council and the Queensland government have expanded public communication around disaster preparedness. Severe weather alerts now operate in multiple languages. Indigenous organisations and community groups increasingly participate in emergency planning discussions. Yet critics argue consultation still occurs too late in the planning process and rarely alters major development priorities.

Traditional Owners across southeast Queensland continue advocating for stronger integration of Indigenous land management knowledge into urban planning and water systems. Cultural burning practices ecological restoration and long-term stewardship models challenge the short electoral cycles shaping most infrastructure decisions.

Political caution remains visible around emissions policy. Governments frame climate adaptation as manageable while avoiding detailed public conversations about worst-case scenarios. Few leaders openly discuss which infrastructure may become economically unviable under severe warming or what large-scale relocation could involve.

A city reconsidering itself

Brisbane has long marketed its climate as an advantage. Warm winters outdoor dining and riverfront living became central to the city’s identity. Climate change complicates that image. Summer increasingly carries undertones of risk. Storm warnings interrupt ordinary routines. Heat settles earlier in spring and lingers deeper into autumn.

Artists photographers and writers across Queensland have begun documenting the emotional texture of repeated disasters. Flood mud drying beneath elevated homes. Mangroves swallowing damaged pontoons. Children wearing masks during smoke events. The imagery no longer feels exceptional.

Residents continue adapting in practical ways. Homes rise higher above flood levels. Solar panels spread across suburban roofs. Community groups organise cooling hubs and emergency networks. Yet private adaptation has limits when risks operate at metropolitan scale.

Urban planners increasingly describe Brisbane as a city approaching difficult thresholds. Population growth continues accelerating. Water systems face pressure from alternating drought and flood cycles. Insurance affordability narrows. Infrastructure costs climb. Each pressure compounds the others.⁶

The most confronting question may not concern whether Brisbane can survive climate change. The city almost certainly will. The harder question concerns what kind of city remains after decades of adaptation. Who stays. Who leaves. Which neighbourhoods receive protection. Which become cautionary examples.

Conclusion

Brisbane still projects confidence. Tower cranes dominate the skyline. Interstate migration continues. Cafes fill beside the river after storms retreat. Yet beneath the optimism sits a growing recognition that the climate underpinning the city’s prosperity has shifted.

Adaptation is no longer a distant planning exercise. It is already reshaping insurance markets infrastructure budgets housing security and public health systems. The effects emerge unevenly. Wealthier residents possess greater capacity to relocate retrofit or absorb rising costs. Lower-income communities carry more direct exposure to heat energy insecurity and flood risk.

The next two decades will likely determine whether Brisbane adapts through coordinated long-term planning or through repeated cycles of disaster recovery and reactive spending. Scientists continue warning that warming trajectories matter. Rapid emissions reduction lowers future risk. Delayed action locks in harsher adaptation choices later.

Brisbane’s challenge is not simply engineering. It is political and cultural. The city must decide whether growth remains compatible with geography and climate realities already visible along the riverbanks and western suburbs. Hard conversations about retreat redevelopment and inequality are becoming unavoidable. Water and heat have begun rewriting the terms of urban life. 

The argument now concerns how honestly governments respond.

References

1. Zaerpour M et al. Increasing tree canopy lowers urban air temperature by up to 1.5 °C in heat-prone areas
2. Brisbane City Council. Check your disaster risk
3. Queensland Health. Disaster management and climate preparedness
4. Queensland Government. Flood insurance information
5. Climate Council. Climate risk map and insurance exposure
6. CSIRO. Climate change information for Australia
7. The Guardian. Why leaving is not an option for some flood-hit Queenslanders
8. Brisbane City Council. Flood-resilient design and building requirements
9. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Working Group II
10. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Regional population growth

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Burning Down Slowly: How Climate Change Is Remaking Life in Perth - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Perth’s long summer is becoming a test of who can still afford to stay cool.
The City is heating faster than its systems can adapt.

Key Points

Extreme heat is increasingly concentrated in Perth’s outer suburbs where tree canopy and cooling infrastructure remain scarce. 1 Declining rainfall has reshaped Perth’s water system and accelerated dependence on desalination. 2 Climate exposure increasingly overlaps with housing inequality, insecure renting, and ageing infrastructure. 3 Western Australia’s economy remains deeply tied to gas exports despite escalating climate risks. 4 Scientists warn south-west ecosystems face accelerating biodiversity loss from heat, drying wetlands, and marine warming. 5 Perth’s future resilience may depend less on emergency response than on how the city is designed over the next decade. 6

A city built for abundance enters an era of scarcity

By mid-afternoon in Perth’s north-eastern growth corridors, the air often feels trapped between dark roofs, wide roads, and unfinished verges. 

Temperatures can remain several degrees hotter than older coastal suburbs long after sunset. The heat lingers indoors. 

For decades Perth sold itself through sunlight, space, and suburban expansion. Climate scientists now describe south-west Western Australia as one of the world’s most vulnerable drying regions, with rainfall declines exceeding most comparable temperate zones.¹ 

The shift is already visible in daily life. Ambulance demand spikes during prolonged heatwaves. Schools close outdoor activities earlier. Construction workers start before dawn. Families crowd shopping centres simply to access air conditioning. 

Public debate still frames climate change as a future economic risk. In Perth, it increasingly resembles a public health crisis shaped by postcode.

Heat is exposing the geography of inequality

Perth’s hottest suburbs are rarely its wealthiest. Many outer-growth estates contain sparse tree canopy, limited public transport, and homes built rapidly during housing booms with little passive cooling. State government canopy mapping released last year showed average urban canopy across Perth and Peel at only 22%.⁶ 

Inner western suburbs retain mature trees planted generations earlier, while newer developments often rely on small saplings struggling against expanding asphalt. Researchers have repeatedly linked extreme heat exposure with cardiovascular illness, respiratory stress, mental health deterioration, and higher mortality among elderly residents. 

National studies estimate heatwaves already cause more Australian deaths than any other natural hazard.⁷ Emergency physicians in Perth describe multi-day heatwaves as cumulative events. Patients arrive dehydrated after nights without sleep. Aged-care residents deteriorate after air conditioning failures. Ambulance ramping intensifies. 

Outdoor workers remain especially vulnerable. Construction crews, warehouse staff, delivery drivers, and emergency personnel often operate in temperatures above 40C while workplace protections largely depend on employer discretion. 

The city’s housing crisis compounds the danger. Renters frequently occupy poorly insulated homes where indoor temperatures remain unsafe well into the evening. Cooling costs can consume substantial portions of household income during summer. 

Across Perth, climate adaptation increasingly resembles a contest over access to shade, insulation, transport, and electricity. 

Perth’s water miracle came with escalating costs

Perth once relied heavily on rainfall flowing into dams from the Darling Range. That system has collapsed within a single lifetime. Since the 1970s, rainfall across south-west Western Australia has declined sharply while streamflow into Perth’s dams has fallen by roughly 80%.²⁴ 

The city now depends heavily on desalination and groundwater replenishment to maintain drinking supplies. The transformation has been technically impressive. Perth became an international case study in large-scale desalination long before many comparable cities accepted climate-driven water scarcity as structural rather than temporary. Yet desalination carries financial and energy burdens. 

Maintaining climate-independent water supplies requires expensive infrastructure, long-term energy commitments, and continued public investment.³ 

Groundwater systems are also under pressure. Around Perth and Mandurah, declining recharge rates have forced authorities to rebalance extraction from stressed aquifers.⁴ 

Scientists warn drying wetlands and reduced river flows threaten biodiversity as well as water security. Conflict over water allocation is beginning to sharpen. Mining, agriculture, residential growth, and industrial expansion increasingly compete for diminishing resources across the state. 

The tensions are not theoretical. Earlier this year, Traditional Owners accused Rio Tinto’s operations in the Pilbara of contributing to the drying of a culturally significant waterhole.⁸ 

 A fossil fuel economy confronts a warming future

Western Australia remains economically tied to liquefied natural gas exports, iron ore production, and resource-intensive industry. That dependence shapes almost every climate debate in Perth. Governments continue presenting gas expansion as compatible with emissions reduction targets, arguing the industry underpins jobs, royalties, and energy security. 

Environmental groups counter that long-lived gas infrastructure risks locking the state into decades of higher emissions precisely as trading partners accelerate decarbonisation. 

The contradiction has become harder to ignore. Perth increasingly experiences the physical consequences of climate change while simultaneously benefiting economically from industries driving global emissions. Business leaders privately acknowledge another concern. International carbon border tariffs and stricter supply-chain rules could reshape export markets faster than Western Australia anticipates. 

A genuine transition would require more than renewable mega-projects. Economists argue the state must build processing, manufacturing, grid infrastructure, and long-term regional employment rather than relying solely on raw material exports. 

For workers in fossil fuel industries, climate politics often sounds abstract until discussions shift toward employment security. That tension helps explain why climate policy in Western Australia frequently moves slower than scientific warnings. 

The coastline is changing in plain sight

Along sections of Perth’s coastline, erosion already reshapes beaches familiar to generations of residents. Dunes retreat. Protective infrastructure expands. Storm surges increasingly threaten low-lying assets. Local governments face politically difficult questions about development approvals in vulnerable coastal areas. 

Expensive waterfront property still attracts investment even as sea-level projections become more alarming. Marine ecosystems are also under strain. Researchers linked recent marine heatwaves off Western Australia to mass fish deaths and severe ecological disruption.⁹ 

The warming ocean affects tourism, fisheries, biodiversity, and coastal identity simultaneously. Perth’s relationship with the beach has always shaped how the city imagines itself. Managed retreat remains politically toxic in Australia. 

Yet planners increasingly acknowledge some coastal infrastructure may eventually become prohibitively expensive to defend. International examples from Miami, Jakarta, and parts of southern Europe show adaptation costs rise dramatically once retreat becomes unavoidable rather than planned.

The suburbs themselves are becoming climate infrastructure

Perth’s sprawling urban form magnifies climate exposure. Long commuting distances increase transport emissions while low-density development spreads heat-retaining surfaces across expanding corridors. Urban planners increasingly argue the city’s future resilience depends less on emergency management than on ordinary design decisions. 

Street trees, public transport, reflective surfaces, housing standards, and building orientation all influence survivability during extreme heat. Public frustration over disappearing greenery has become increasingly visible. Online discussions among Perth residents frequently describe newer suburbs as barren and difficult to inhabit during summer heat.¹⁰ 

Climate adaptation can also deepen inequality. Wealthier households install solar panels, batteries, efficient cooling systems, and electric vehicles while lower-income residents remain exposed to rising power prices and inadequate housing. Some councils have begun experimenting with reflective road surfaces and expanded greening programs. 

Critics argue such measures remain fragmented compared with the scale of transformation required. Scientists warn that hotter nights may become one of Perth’s most serious long-term health threats. Human bodies recover poorly without overnight cooling. Sleep disruption affects productivity, chronic illness, mental health, and family stress. 

A city once designed around outdoor living now faces the possibility that summer afternoons may increasingly push residents indoors.

Climate pressure is reshaping political trust

Western Australians have historically supported resource development more strongly than many eastern states. Mining wealth built roads, hospitals, schools, and public services. Climate change complicates that political compact. 

Governments encourage adaptation while continuing to approve emissions-intensive projects. Public messaging often emphasises resilience without fully describing the scale of future disruption. Scientists and policy researchers increasingly warn adaptation planning still relies on conservative assumptions. 

Critics argue official projections sometimes underestimate worst-case risks involving simultaneous heatwaves, power failures, smoke exposure, and water stress. Local councils also vary sharply in preparedness. 

Wealthier municipalities generally possess stronger revenue bases and greater capacity to invest in cooling infrastructure, canopy restoration, and resilience planning. Indigenous leaders meanwhile continue pushing for greater recognition of traditional ecological knowledge, particularly in land management and fire mitigation. 

Some Indigenous-led programs have demonstrated strong results where conventional approaches struggled. The deeper challenge may be cultural. 

Perth remains emotionally attached to a twentieth-century development model built on cheap land, car dependence, abundant energy, and climatic stability. Those assumptions are beginning to fracture.

What a climate-resilient Perth might actually require

By 2050, Perth could become a global example of successful climate adaptation or a warning about delayed transformation. A resilient version of the city would likely look physically different from the Perth of previous decades. 

Denser housing near transport corridors. Larger urban forests. Strict minimum cooling standards for rentals and social housing. Expanded public transport reducing long suburban commutes. Water recycling and renewable-powered desalination would become ordinary infrastructure rather than emergency responses. 

Hospitals, schools, and aged-care facilities would operate through prolonged heatwaves and blackout scenarios. Economic resilience would depend on diversification beyond fossil fuel exports. That shift would require political honesty about industries likely to contract over coming decades. 

The alternative is visible already during severe heat events. Overstretched emergency systems. Rising insurance costs. Energy insecurity. Ecological decline. Working-class suburbs absorbing disproportionate risk. 

Perth still possesses substantial advantages. Wealth, technical expertise, renewable energy potential, and relatively strong institutions provide room to adapt. Time matters though. Climate systems do not negotiate with election cycles. 

The city’s future may ultimately depend on whether adaptation remains reactive and piecemeal or becomes the organising principle of how Perth builds, governs, and imagines itself.

References

1. Western Australian Government: Climate change and waterways
2. Department of Water and Environmental Regulation: Seasonal water and climate trends
3. Made Possible by Water: Securing Western Australia’s water future
4. Western Australian Government: Rebalancing our groundwater
5. Water Corporation: Climate and the South West
6. WA Government: Perth and Peel tree canopy data
7. Monash University heatwave mortality study
8. Reuters: Rio Tinto groundwater dispute
9. The Guardian: WA marine heatwave impacts
10. Perth residents discussing heat and canopy loss

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