Newcastle NSW 2050: Racing the Climate Clock - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Newcastle faces an escalating climate crisis
that is reshaping its economy and communities

Key Points

• Projected temperature rise of 1.2–3.6°C by 2050^[1]
• Hot days (35°C+) set to double or quadruple^[2]
• Winter rainfall to decrease up to 26%^[3]
• Sea level rise: 18–31cm by 2050^[4]
• Severe fire danger days will more than double^[5]
• Current climate policy focuses on renewables and emissions cuts^[6]

Newcastle, New South Wales, the bustling engine of the Hunter region, faces a future shaped by relentless climate forces.¹

Temperatures here are forecast to climb, with days above 35°C multiplying, and summers stretching into new territory by 2050.²

Rainfall patterns will warp, with winters expected to grow drier, amplifying water stress and reshaping local ecology.³

Sea level rise, measured already at 3.7mm per year, edges city streets and surf beaches closer to flooding and erosion. By 2050, Newcastle’s coastline could see the ocean 18–31cm higher than today.⁴

Fire weather will intensify, with the number of severe fire danger days projected to more than double in some seasons, reshaping the region’s risk profile and disaster resilience strategy.⁵

Climate action in Newcastle, vigorous but incomplete, faces enormous pressure, as local governments pledge emissions cuts and renewable energy expansion yet confront political, economic, and community challenges.⁶

Social Landscape: Communities at Risk

Rising heat will alter daily life, testing public health and amplifying the urban heat island effect.¹

Vulnerable populations - older residents, outdoor workers, and the homeless - face heightened risks from extreme heat and bushfires.²

More frequent fire weather events threaten homes on city edges and rural hinterlands, fuelling anxiety about personal safety and regional emergency preparedness.⁵

Water security will be challenged by shifting rainfall, stressing local supply systems and raising the stakes for efficient water use and infrastructure decisions.³

Social resilience projects are emerging, with councils coordinating to build stronger safety nets, but disparities persist between richer and poorer districts.⁶

Economic Crossroads: Industry and Adaptation

The Hunter economy, which is driven by mining, agriculture, shipping, and tourism, is sensitive to climate volatility.¹

Hotter summers and decreased winter rain risk crop yields, complicate viticulture, and endanger food producers who rely on stable seasonal cycles.³

Extreme heat will challenge productivity in outdoor industries, from construction to shipping and port operations, potentially increasing workplace health costs.²

Tourism and surf culture, vital to Newcastle’s identity, may suffer from rising seas and more frequent high tide floods, eroding beaches and damaging waterfront properties.⁴

Transitioning to a “circular economy” embracing innovation, cleaner energy, and resource reuse will demand major investment and training for local businesses and workers.⁶

Ecological Shifts: Struggling Biodiversity

Rising temperatures and disrupted rainfall patterns threaten native flora and fauna, amplifying stress on vulnerable habitats.¹

Bushland reserves, including Barrington Tops and Wollemi, face more frequent and severe fire events, raising concerns over long-term species survival and ecological integrity.⁵

Coastal wetlands and low-lying lakes, unique to the Hunter, will face seawater incursions and saline pollution as the ocean advances.⁴

Conservation and adaptive management, leveraging Indigenous knowledge and new refuges, will be pivotal in safeguarding what remains of the region’s biodiversity.⁶

Political Reality: Policy, Action, and Limits

Newcastle City Council is credited with progressive climate action—100% renewables for operations, hefty emissions cuts, and ambitious goal-setting for community-wide change by 2030.⁶

Local government collaborates via the Hunter Joint Organisation, yet action remains constrained by state and national policy gaps and political gridlock over fossil fuel transition.⁶

A new 2025 Climate Action Plan aims to accelerate adaptation and emissions reductions, but tough trade-offs loom for coal, heavy industry, and investment priorities.⁶

Culture: Identity, Memory, and Hope

Climate stress is reshaping Newcastle’s social and cultural fabric, as coastal residents, Indigenous communities, and newcomers re-negotiate their connections to place.¹

Surf lifesavers, artists, and activists are already redefining local traditions, drawing on collective memory and new technology to prepare for a transformed coast.⁴

The push for community-led renewable projects and knowledge-sharing brings hope, but also raises hard questions: Who benefits? What is protected? Who decides?⁶

What Must Change?

To avert worst-case impacts, Newcastle must scale up: rapid emission cuts, aggressive local planning for disasters, nature-based adaptation, and radical inclusivity in decision-making.⁶

Indigenous leadership and cultural knowledge need full integration into city planning, to ensure that adaptation is respectful, effective, and rooted in place.⁶

Stronger regional and national policy, matched with grassroots innovation, will determine whether Newcastle in 2050 is thriving or merely surviving against the tides.

References

1. Climate change in the Hunter - AdaptNSW, NSW Government
2. How hot will your neighbourhood be by 2050 – Climate Council
3. Rainfall and climate projections – AdaptNSW
4. Climate Change Impacts on Australian Beaches and Surf
5. The Critical Decade: NSW climate impacts – Climate Commission
6. City of Newcastle Strengthens Climate Action Plan; SolarQuotes: Newcastle Climate Action Plan

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Australia braces for escalating fire and flood disasters by 2035 under minimal warming - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Key Points

Additional 0.5°C by 2035 will worsen fire and flood risks[1] Southeast Australia most vulnerable to bushfires[3] Flood risks rising in NSW, QLD, VIC and SA[5] Coastal properties face major inundation by 2050[6] Net zero by 2035 is essential[8]

Australia faces escalating fire and flood disasters by 2035 under just half a degree more warming.

An additional 0.5°C of global warming by 2035 is projected to significantly intensify bushfire and flood hazards across Australia, with major implications for public safety, ecosystems, and infrastructure.

Queensland and southeast Australia, including Victoria and New South Wales, along with urban and coastal communities, face sharply increased risks.

Without urgent mitigation and adaptation measures, increasing disaster frequency and severity threaten homes, livelihoods, and natural systems, with economic costs escalating into the billions annually^[1][2].

Intensified Fire Risks

Scientific assessments converge on a strong likelihood of more frequent, longer, and severe bushfire seasons due to warming and drying trends in southeastern Australia.

Regions such as eastern Victoria (including Gippsland), southern inland New South Wales, and urban fringes around Melbourne and Brisbane are especially vulnerable.

Fuel dryness will increase, fire seasons will start earlier and last longer, and the incidence of extreme fire weather including dry lightning and pyro-convection will rise.

This puts at risk the Blue Mountains, Hunter Valley, Maranoa in Queensland, and southeastern Tasmania, where large, unpredictable wildfires are expected to become more common^[3][4].

Growing Flood Dangers

Climate projections also highlight increased heavy rainfall events and flooding, particularly in northern New South Wales including Richmond, Tweed, Ballina, Lismore, and Clarence Valley which are prone to tropical cyclones and severe riverine flooding.

Flood risk is increasing in urban coastal areas such as Sydney’s Kurnell Beach and Bondi Beach, Melbourne’s Docklands and Kensington Banks, as well as Gold Coast and Adelaide suburbs facing sea-level rise.

Rapid urban growth on floodplains combined with overwhelmed drainage infrastructure further exacerbates this flood threat.

Coastal erosion and rising seas additionally threaten thousands of properties nationwide, with coastal homes within 150 metres of the shoreline at highest risk of inundation and becoming uninhabitable by 2050^[5][6].

Compound and Coastal Hazards

• The interplay of drought, fires, and floods will have a multiplier effect.
• Fire-scorched landscapes increase runoff and erosion, enhancing flood magnitude.
• Communities face repeated disaster cycles, stressing social and economic resilience.
• Coastal erosion combined with sea-level rise endangers major population centres and accelerates property loss across Australia’s coastlines^[1][7].

Adaptation and Policy Recommendations

Expert recommendations include deployment of improved early-warning systems for fires and floods, enhancing infrastructure resilience, enforcing planning restrictions in high-risk zones, and boosting social and ecological adaptive capacity.

A rapid transition to net-zero emissions by 2035 is critical to limit warming and avoid the worst projected impacts.

National policies must integrate emission reductions alongside development strategies that prioritise climate risk management and equitable community support^[2][3][8].

References

1. CSIRO, Climate projections for Australia ↩ ↩ ↩
2. Climate Council, 2035 Target Matters ↩ ↩
3. SBS, The climate change scenario that could leave Australia unrecognisable ↩ ↩ ↩
4. Climate Council, Climate vulnerable locations ↩
5. Realestate.com.au, Coastal flood risk in major cities ↩ ↩
6. Climate Council, Climate Risk Map ↩ ↩
7. Greenpeace, National Climate Risk Assessment ↩
8. Greens, 2035 Net Zero Target ↩ ↩

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Labels: climatechange,globalwarming,australia,bushfires,floods,coastalerosion,netzero

Climate Change Is Rewriting the Soundtrack of Nature - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Animals are changing their voices

as the climate crisis deepens

As climate change reshapes habitats, animals are altering the way they sing, call, and communicate

Key points

Climate change is reshaping animal communication [1] Noise and heat disrupt ecosystems and behaviours [2] Soundscapes reveal hidden stress in species [3] Australian wildlife already shows measurable changes [4]

The science of bioacoustics

Scientists are turning to bioacoustics, the study of sound in the natural world, to measure environmental stress.

By recording animal calls across habitats, researchers are documenting shifts in pitch, frequency, and rhythm.

These subtle changes reveal how warming temperatures and shifting ecosystems are altering life at a biological level ^[1].

Birdsong under pressure

Australian birds, from magpies to fairy-wrens, are changing their songs as forests thin and heatwaves intensify.

Some species are singing earlier in the morning to avoid rising daytime temperatures.

Others are reducing the complexity of their calls, which may weaken their ability to attract mates or defend territory ^[2].

The silence of frogs

Frogs are often early indicators of environmental decline, and their calls are falling silent in many regions.

Climate-driven loss of breeding wetlands and temperature stress reduces both the volume and frequency of their croaks.

Scientists warn that if these calls vanish entirely, it signals deep ecological breakdown ^[3].

Oceans growing louder

Marine species also face sonic disruption as climate change reshapes ocean soundscapes.

Warming waters increase underwater noise, while coral bleaching reduces the natural reef chorus that guides young fish.

Whales and dolphins are struggling to adapt, their calls increasingly drowned out by shipping, storms, and shifting sea chemistry ^[4].

Australia’s changing soundscape

Australia provides some of the clearest examples of how climate stress transforms animal communication.

From heat-stressed bats falling silent to altered birdsong across the outback, researchers are tracing how animals adapt or fail.

These shifts not only change ecological balance but also alter the cultural identity of landscapes long defined by their sounds ^[5].

Cultural and ecological loss

The decline of natural soundscapes is more than a scientific warning.

Indigenous cultures often encode ecological knowledge in animal calls, from the timing of frog choruses to seasonal bird migrations.

As those voices fade, both cultural memory and ecological resilience weaken ^[6].

References

1. Nature – The rise of bioacoustics in climate research ↩ ↩
2. Scientific American – How climate change is affecting birdsong ↩ ↩
3. ABC News – Australian frogs fall silent under climate stress ↩ ↩
4. The Guardian – Oceans are getting noisier, marine life is struggling ↩ ↩
5. CSIRO – Australian birdsong changing with climate ↩
6. BBC Future – The culture of animal communication ↩

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Scientists Denounce Trump Administration’s Climate Report - New York Times

New York Times - Lisa Friedman   Sachi Kitajima Mulkey

Scores of researchers reviewed the Energy Department’s argument
about greenhouse gases and found serious deficiencies 

 

A heat relief station at the Salvation Army Phoenix Citadel Corps.
Credit...Juan Arredondo for The New York Times

More than 85 American and international scientists have condemned a Trump administration report that calls the threat of climate change overblown, saying the analysis is riddled with errors, misrepresentations and cherry-picked data to fit the president’s political agenda.

The scientists submitted their critique as part of a public comment period on the report, which was to close Tuesday night.

“No one should doubt that human-caused climate change is real, is already producing potentially dangerous impacts, and that humanity is on track for a geologically enormous amount of warming,” the scientists wrote. They compared the administration’s report to efforts by the tobacco industry to create doubt around the health links between smoking and cancer.

The five researchers who prepared the administration’s July report were handpicked by Chris Wright, the energy secretary, and they all reject the established scientific consensus that the burning of oil, gas and coal is dangerously heating the planet. They acknowledged that the Earth is warming but said that climate change is “less damaging economically than commonly believed.”

The administration used the report to justify its recent announcement that it would repeal limits on greenhouse gas emissions that stem from burning fossil fuels.

Mr. Wright has accused the report’s critics of avoiding a robust discussion of the science.

“People had been much less willing than I had hoped to engage in a thoughtful dialogue on climate change,” he said in a recent interview. “This is fundamentally a story about something that’s a real physical phenomenon that’s scientifically complicated. It’s a scientific, economic issue and people treat it too often as a religious issue.”

The Energy Department declined to comment on the criticisms from scientists about the report. Ben Dietderich, a spokesman for Mr. Wright, said in a statement that the agency sought an “open and transparent dialogue around climate science.” He added, “Following the public comment period, we look forward to reviewing and engaging on substantive comments.”

The Trump administration is pursuing an aggressive agenda to ramp up the production and use of coal, oil and gas, the burning of which is the main driver of climate change.

At the same time, average global temperatures have risen by between 1.25 and 1.41 degrees Celsius (or 2.25 to 2.53 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with preindustrial times. That may sound small, but the warming has impacted every region of the planet with more frequent and intense heat waves, floods, wildfires, droughts and other disasters.

Ross McKitrick, one of the report’s authors, said that their climate work for the Energy Department had been paused because of pending litigation. He defended the report’s lack of peer review, saying that it underwent an initial review within the Energy Department. Critiques submitted during the public comment period will be part of the public record, he said.

Dr. McKitrick said that the report’s authors followed their assignment and focused on themes that do not typically get enough attention.

But the 85 scientists, many of whom produced work that was cited in the Energy Department report, said that the report should be discredited.

In a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal that essentially serves as a peer review, the scientists took apart some of the government’s most eye-popping claims.

“Their goal was to muddy the waters, to put out a plausible-sounding argument that people can use in the public debate to make it sound like we don’t know whether climate change is bad or not,” said Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, who led the rebuttal.

The Energy Department report could have a significant impact on federal policy. Climate denialists have for years acknowledged that they wanted to put the imprimatur of the federal government on research that runs counter to accepted climate science. That could give them more influence with Congress and strengthen their ability to legally challenge climate regulations.

Already the Environmental Protection Agency is using the Energy Department analysis to justify the repeal of the endangerment finding, a 2009 scientific declaration that climate change poses a danger to human health and welfare. That finding is the basis for regulations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from such sources as automobiles and power plants.

Dr. Dessler said he was driven to reply to the Trump administration report because he felt it made a mockery out of a fundamental and heavily scrutinized field of science.

By Tuesday morning, more than 2,300 comments had been filed regarding the report. Among them was a submission from the American Meteorological Society, a premier climate science organization, which outlined what it called “foundational flaws” in the report and called on the government to correct the findings.

Dr. Dessler’s 439-page report — nearly three times as long as the Energy Department’s — disputes each chapter of the agency’s findings. In many cases, the government’s version deploys a scientific “kernel of truth,” taken out of context, to make its arguments seem credible, he said.

For example, the Energy Department report states that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that helps plants grow, and therefore more gas would improve agricultural yields. The scientific review points out that the Energy Department report sidesteps the negative impacts of global warming on plant life, including extreme heat, drought, wildfires and floods.

In another instance, the Trump administration’s report cited two studies by Antonio Gasparrini, a professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, to support its statement that deaths caused by cold weather exceed those caused by heat.

While that is true, Dr. Gasparrini said, the report ignores the fact that climate change is increasing heat-related deaths, and at a greater rate than it would prevent deaths from cold.

“I found the report very poor from a scientific perspective, with contradictory and unsupported statements,” he said.

Cyrus C. Taylor, a physics professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said a chart showing yearly average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations omitted key data and made misleading choices on a graph to make it seem as though levels had risen only slightly.

“It’s a graphical sleight of hand,” Dr. Taylor said.

The scientists found other errors as they reviewed the federal report, including misquoting an international climate report, using incorrect scientific definitions and oversimplifying and mixing up the results of multiple studies.

Pamela D. McElwee, a professor of human ecology at Rutgers University, reviewed a section of the Energy Department report that claimed technological advances and wealth would protect communities from the impacts of climate change. It noted, for example, that improvements to canals, levees and flood gates in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina helped protect against the storm surge from Hurricane Isaac in 2012.

Dr. McElwee, who called the report “absolute sloppiness,” said it failed to consider future scenarios and the cost of climate disasters. The section on risks from climate change cited a 2023 paper that does not exist — and included a link to a different paper that concluded that nations should address climate change because the consequences would be damaging.

The Trump administration’s report also highlighted the work of Kristie Ebi, a global health professor at the University of Washington, as proof that dietary supplements would help combat nutrient loss from plants in a warmer world. But Dr. Ebi said her research did not make that claim.

Jim Rossi, a professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville who specializes in energy law, said the report was significantly flimsier than what would typically be used to support federal policies or reverse them.

“There’s nothing wrong with having dissenting viewpoints that differ from the mainstream involved in reports used for policy assessments,” Mr. Rossi said. But to reverse course on a policy decision, the evidence “ought to be at least as strong as the factual record and science that supported the decision in the first place,” he said.

Links

• How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points? - New York Times
• Climate Change Is Transforming Summer in Europe - New York Times
• The Old Climate-Activism Playbook No Longer Works. What Else Can? - New York Times
• Humans Are Altering the Seas. Here’s What the Future Ocean Might Look Like. - New York Times
• Scientists May Have Identified a Culprit Behind Declining Amazon Rains - New York Times
• Trump, With Tariffs and Threats, Tries to Strong-Arm Nations to Retreat on Climate Goals - New York Times

Three reasons why the climate crisis must reshape how we think about war

The Conversation - Duncan Depledge

Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock

Author Duncan Depledge is Senior Lecturer in Geopolitics and Security, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, England.

Earth’s average temperature rose more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in 2024 for the first time – a critical threshold in the climate crisis. At the same time, major armed conflicts continue to rage in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere.

What should be increasingly clear is that war now needs to be understood as unfolding in the shadow of climate breakdown.

The relationship between war and climate change is complex. But here are three reasons why the climate crisis must reshape how we think about war. 

1. War exacerbates climate change

The inherent destructiveness of war has long degraded the environment. But we have only recently become more keenly aware of its climatic implications.

This follows efforts primarily by researchers and civil society organisations to account for the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from fighting, most notably in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as to record emissions from all military operations and post-war reconstruction.

One study, conducted by Scientists for Global Responsibility and the Conflict and Environment Observatory, has made a best guess that the total carbon footprint of militaries across the globe is greater than that of Russia, which currently has the fourth-largest footprint in the world.

The US is believed to have the highest military emissions. Estimates by UK-based researchers Benjamin Neimark, Oliver Belcher and Patrick Bigger suggest that, if it were a country, the US military would be the 47th-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. This would put it between Peru and Portugal.

These studies, though, rest on limited data. Sometimes partial emissions data is reported by military agencies, and researchers have to supplement this with their own calculations using official government figures and those of associated industries.

There is also significant variation from country to country. Some military emissions, most notably those of China and Russia, have proved almost impossible to assess.

The US military is one of the largest polluters in history. Jeffrey Groeneweg / EPA

Wars can also put international cooperation on climate change and the energy transition at risk. Since the start of the Ukraine war, for instance, scientific cooperation between the west and Russia in the Arctic has broken down. This has prevented crucial climate data from being compiled.

Critics of militarism argue that the acknowledgement of war’s contribution to the climate crisis ought to be the moment of reckoning for those who are too willing to spend vast resources on maintaining and expanding military power. Some even believe that demilitarisation is the only way out of climate catastrophe.

Others are less radical. But the crucial point is that recognition of the climate costs of war increasingly raises moral and practical questions about the need for more strategic restraint and whether the business of war can ever be rendered less environmentally destructive.

2. Climate change demands military responses

Before the impact of war on the climate came into focus, researchers debated whether the climate crisis could act as a “threat multiplier”. This has led some to argue that climate change could intensify the risk of violence in parts of the world already under stress from food and water insecurity, internal tensions, poor governance and territorial disputes.

Some conflicts in the Middle East and Sahel have already been labelled “climate wars”, implying they may not have happened if it were not for the stresses of climate change. Other researchers have shown how such claims are deeply contentious. Any decision to engage in violence or go to war is always still a choice made by people, not the climate.

Harder to contest is the observation that the climate crisis is leading militaries to be deployed with greater frequency to assist with civilian emergencies. This encompasses a wide range of activities from combating wildfires to reinforcing flood defences, assisting with evacuations, conducting search-and-rescue operations, supporting post-disaster recovery and delivering humanitarian aid.

Chinese soldiers stacking sandbags in a flooded area of Hebei province. chinahbzyg / Shutterstock

Whether the climate crisis will result in more violence and armed conflict in the future is impossible to predict. If it does, military force may need to be deployed more frequently. At the same time, if militaries are depended upon to help respond to the growing frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters, their resources will be further stretched.

Governments will be confronted with tough choices about what kinds of tasks should be prioritised and whether military budgets should be increased at the expense of other societal needs.

3. Armed forces will need to adapt

With geopolitical tensions rising and the number of conflicts increasing, it seems unlikely that calls for demilitarisation will be met any time soon. This leaves researchers with the uncomfortable prospect of having to rethink how military force can – and ought to be – wielded in a world simultaneously trying to adapt to accelerating climate change and escape its deep dependence on fossil fuels.

The need to prepare military personnel and adapt bases, equipment and other infrastructure to withstand and operate effectively in increasingly extreme and unpredictable climatic conditions is a matter of growing concern. In 2018, two major hurricanes in the US caused more than US$8 billion (£5.95 billion) worth of damage to military infrastructure.

My own research has demonstrated how, in the UK at least, there is growing awareness among some defence officials that militaries need to think carefully about how they will navigate the major changes unfolding in the global energy landscape that are being brought about by the energy transition.

Militaries are being confronted with a stark choice. They can either remain as one of the last heavy users of fossil fuels in an increasingly low-carbon world or be part of an energy transition that will probably have significant implications for how military force is generated, deployed and sustained.

What is becoming clear is that operational effectiveness will increasingly depend on how aware militaries are of the implications of climate change for future operations. It will also hinge on how effectively they have adapted their capabilities to cope with more extreme climatic conditions and how much they have managed to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.

Soldiers delivering humanitarian aid. photos_adil / Shutterstock

In the early 19th century, the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz famously argued that while war’s nature rarely changes, its character is almost constantly evolving with the times.

Recognising the scale and reach of the climate crisis will be essential if we are now to make sense of why and how future wars will be waged, as well as how some might be averted or rendered less destructive.

Links

• Militarism: A Leading Cause of Environmental and Climate Crises
• Estimating the Military’s Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security
• Military Responses to Climate Hazards
• Global Peace Index 2025
• The Utility of Force

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Diesel rebates for miners and a new EV tax? Australia’s climate policy double-think

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

What?!

Australia gives big miners billions in refunds each year for burning diesel.

And now our government wants to tax EV drivers?

If that feels upside-down to you, you’re not alone. Let’s unpack what’s actually happening.

What the “diesel rebate” really is (and why it’s so big)

Australia’s Fuel Tax Credits (FTC) scheme is a massive rebate program for diesel that’s used off public roads (think mine sites and machinery) and for heavy vehicles on public roads (think trucks).

These diesel users get a taxpayer-funded discount for every litre they burn.

The scheme is enormous. Treasury’s own statements and independent analysis put its annual cost at $10 billion a year, with mining companies pocketing the lion’s share.

The Australia Institute estimates $9.6 billion in 2023–24, with over $1 billion apiece going to iron ore and coal every year. ATO data confirms mining is the largest beneficiary.

Is that a fossil-fuel subsidy? (By United Nations and OECD rules, yes.)

This is where definitions and seeing through the spin and greenwashing matters. Our government ties itself in knots pretending this isn’t a fossil fuel subsidy.

But the OECD says it is. It counts not only cash handouts but also tax expenditures - like rebates and exemptions - as “fossil fuel support”.

The environment sees it that way too! The global climate doesn’t care what names our government uses, this scheme clearly promotes burning fossil fuels.

The OECD has urged Australia to reduce or eliminate fuel-tax exemptions for heavy vehicles and machinery. The International Energy Agency also recognises diesel rebates as a subsidy.

By international norms – and the G20 pledge Australia signed up to – our diesel rebates are squarely subsidies.

Meanwhile: Canberra is gearing up to tax EVs for road use

Back in October 2023 the High Court struck down Victoria’s state-based EV road-user charge as an unconstitutional “excise”, reserving that power for the Commonwealth.

That put the ball in Canberra’s court.

Fast-forward to August 2025: after the recent economic reform roundtable, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said there’s “a surprising degree of consensus” to introduce road-user charging, starting with EVs.

State and territory treasurers are due to consider an options paper this month. It’s not legislated yet, but the policy direction is clear.

So yes, the plan is to charge EVs first while still subsidising diesel for miners.

The government says it’s about fairness – that everyone should “pay their share”. But what about mining companies paying their share for the impacts of climate collapse?!

To be fair, the government has made EVs cheaper: the Electric Car FBT exemption has been in place since July 2022. New Vehicle Efficiency Standards are incentivising cleaner cars. But these policies will be undercut if EVs get a new tax. And most new vehicles on the road are still fossil-fuelled.

The bigger picture (and a better path)

Here’s the inconsistency: internationally we pledged in 2009 to phase out inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies. And our net-zero plans rely on rapid electrification.

Instead of getting fossil fuel subsidies down, our government pretends they don’t exist. And now, while it keeps subsidising diesel, it’s preparing to target EVs with an extra charge.

That’s backwards.

There’s a more coherent way to do this:

1. Call diesel rebates what they are - a multi-billion dollar fossil-fuel subsidy scheme.
2. Set a timetable to wind back diesel rebates, especially in mining. Even industry voices like Andrew Forrest have suggested this to kick-start alternatives.
3. Design one neutral, national road-funding model. If Australia goes to road-user charging, it should apply to all vehicles as the fuel excise declines - so we’re not double-taxing petrol cars or singling out EVs.
4. Hold the line on EV incentives until parity. Keep the FBT exemption for battery-electric cars in the near term, align it with the efficiency standard, and set a clear review point tied to price parity and uptake - not an arbitrary date.
5. Put justice and place first. Use the savings to fund charging in regional, remote, and First Nations communities. That’s how the transition can stay fair while cutting real tonnes.

Bottom line

Yes, Australia needs to fund roads. But taxing EVs first while rebating diesel at a massive scale is like charging people to bring reusable bags to Woolies or Coles while giving the plastic ones away for free.

If we’re serious about a safe climate and a productive and prosperous Australia, we should urgently phase out fossil-era tax breaks and implement technology-neutral road funding. In that order.

Links

• Debunking 'division' on climate change - Gregory Andrews
• What! Culling Koalas in Response to Climate Change? - Gregory Andrews
• More Scientific Evidence that Climate Change is Accelerating - Gregory Andrews
• Tree planting not a panacea on climate change - Gregory Andrews
• Climate change denial and toxic masculinity - Gregory Andrews
• Climate change denial: Lies work! - Gregory Andrews

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Military experts warn of climate wars - Julian Cribb

Surviving the 21st Century - Julian Cribb

AUTHOR

Julian Cribb AM is an Australian science writer and author of seven books on the human existential emergency. His latest book is How to Fix a Broken Planet (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

“Accelerating climate disruption is the greatest threat to the human future: our safety and wellbeing, our homes and communities, and how and where we live and work,” a group of leading Australian military and security experts says.

The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG) warns that climate impacts are accelerating faster than expected, at a time when global miliary alliances are ‘in turmoil’, creating a far more dangerous world.

“This risks Australia being dragged into a war with China on the losing side,” the Group, which consists of former military and intelligence top brass, said with devastating bluntness.

“Australia needs a contemporary framing of security that places the biggest threat to our future — climate disruption — at the centre of defense and foreign policy,” it said in ‘A climate-first foreign policy for Australia’.

The report is one of the most honest statements to emerge from the traditionally circumspect security hierarchy anywhere in the world. It applies not only to Australia but to most countries.

It follows ‘Too Hot to Handle’, the Group’s previous admonition on the security threat posed by climate, released in May 2024. This was cold-shouldered by the Albanese Government, which has recently sanctioned a further 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon emissions from coal.

The ASLCG leadership mounts a serious broadside. It includes former Australian Defence chief Admiral Chris Barrie, former Dept of Defence preparedness director Cheryl Durant, former Deputy Chief of the Royal Australian Air Force John Blackburn, and Ian Dunlop, the former chair of the Australian Coal Association.

“We are heading towards levels of warming that will not support humanity as we know it. There will be widespread food insecurity, economic destabilisation, large-scale people displacement, war, failed states and social collapse for which Australia and the world are almost totally unprepared,” they say.

“Climate risks are global, cascading and systemic, and not containable within borders, so the response requires unprecedented international cooperation and a collective mobilisation of resources unprecedented in peacetime to protect humanity’s future.”

The Australian study stands in strident contrast to developments in the US where Trump has gagged the Pentagon, along with other government departments, from even mentioning the word climate. In previous studies US security and defence agencies saw climate as a major security threat. 

Now there are warnings that the US is arming itself for a world that does not exist in reality. These are augmenting perceptions among its former allies that the US is now an untrustworthy friend – and global relationships need to be rethought.

Europe, by contrast, is far more open in acknowledging the military threat posed by climate change, and building it into its defence and diplomatic strategies. 

“Climate change is an accelerator and multiplier of disasters, instability and conflict, requiring European forces to adapt to operations in a changing climate. The increasing risks from climate change mean that it is shifting from being solely a human security threat to a national security threat, both to Europe and to its strategic interests,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies said.

These postures point to the possibility of a major global strategic realignment, with the climate-denying axis led by the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other petrostates on one side and the ‘realists’ led by Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and China on the other. 

Thus, a new Cold War between the Fossil states and a Green Alliance looms – a fight for the human future.

Setting aside the old political friction points for a moment, China is now the unchallenged global leader in green energy, having installed around 40 per cent of global capacity so far. 

In 2024, its green energy investment topped $818 billion. 

Electric cars, trains, batteries, panels, devices, drones and robots are the bow wave in its transformation to a green, low-carbon electro-economy that will leave the fossil-run US beached like a Basilosaurus.

China is often criticised for continuing to burn coal. It remains the world’s largest coal burner and carbon emitter – but that is changing, fast: coal supplies around 56% of grid power now, down from 90%, and renewables are up to 41%. 

The Chinese oil and gas giant Sinopec anticipates Chinese coal consumption to peak this year and carbon emissions to peak before 2030. 

Parallelling this is spectacular growth in the country’s hydrogen economy.

Whether this track record is enough to make China hegemon of a global green alliance is still open to question – but one fact is unarguable: China is the world frontrunner in electric cars, photovoltaic cells and batteries. 

Anyone who wants to transform to the low carbon economy (as well as save money) will find Chinese technology essential.

China’s switch to green energy will also reduce its dependence on imported Russian oil, and India is likely to follow suit, placing both giants increasingly in the green camp. 

This will strike a heavy blow to global coal and oil exports – and any country that depends on them.

The ASLCG report correctly reads the tectonic shifts now taking place in global geopolitics. 

Its formula for a climate-first foreign and defence policy is one that every country now needs to absorb:

1. Commitment to deep cooperation with nations that prioritise climate disruption risks, with climate-focused agreements on tax, trade, technology, finance, equity and the like.
2. Diplomatic leadership in high-ambition alliances, such as agreements: to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and international financing; to phase out the fossil fuel economy; and for a regional economic climate mobilisation.
3. Understanding the risks with mandated and regular climate-related security risk assessments, with outcomes shared with neighbours.
4. Full integration of climate risk into defence and security planning, humanitarian response, and conflict prevention efforts.
5. Greater support for vulnerable and frontline nations, increased climate finance and leadership legal frameworks to address climate displacement and migration.

The ASLCG report is a trailblazing vision of where an enlightened, informed and caring humanity might go in the face of the brutal escalation in climate impacts. 

It does not canvass the full catastrophic crisis facing humanity by any means. 

But, on its ground, it is a realistic and pragmatic call for a new way to envision our future – and opens the mind to prospects for a new Global Order to bring it about.

Links

• The great dying – Julian Cribb
• Humanity is risking catastrophe, UN warns – Julian Cribb
• The great human brain fade… – Julian Cribb Julian Cribb Substack
• Julian Cribb Official Website 
• What is the Polycrisis?- Scientific American

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