Here comes the Human Tsunami - Julian Cribb

 Surviving the 21st Century - Julian Cribb

Unleashing a migratory crisis on the Planet

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 human tsunami is building irresistibly, with one person in every 20 worldwide now seeking to relocate from their home country to another.

In 2026 there are over 420 million people on the move, seeking new homes in places not torn by war, famine, climate disruption, resource scarcity or political, religious and economic savagery.

Migrants now comprise the world’s third largest population, behind that of India and China, but significantly outnumbering the USA, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria.

At its root the building migrant tsunami is fed by overpopulation, but also by the forces accompanying it – scarcity of key resources like water, land or food, conditions progressively more hostile and more toxic to family life, and a plague of bad governments bent on war, repression and autocracy.

Humans and our ancestral species have been natural migrants for going on 2 million years, as revealed by a trail of prehuman remains stretching from Ethiopia to China and Indonesia – so there is nothing surprising about our endless quest for new opportunities and horizons. It’s what we do naturally when local resources no longer appear sufficient.

But there is something exceptional about this building tsunami of migration, especially if it results from the abandonment of large areas of the Earth or its megacities as they become uninhabitable. It will be the greatest upheaval in all human history.

The movement has two main components – refugees and voluntary migrants. At last count there were a record 124 million refugees and stateless people adrift, up by over 300% since 2000 (38m). Just above half of these were displaced within their home countries but looking to move. Presently, 1 person of every 67 on Earth has been forced to flee.

There were also 304 million voluntary migrants worldwide in 2024 – a doubling in numbers since 1990 and a tripling since 1975. A Canadian study shows the primary reasons to leave home include education, career, concern about overpopulation and the environment, providing for family, politics, religion, culture, healthcare and poverty. Those, however, are what the migrants state on their applications. There is growing evidence a great many people are relocating ahead of disasters – climatic, environmental or political – which they foresee in their homeland.

The 2026 World Migration Report speaks of “a time of profound global disruption…. Conflicts and violence continue to displace millions, while environmental degradation and climate change are transforming mobility patterns across regions. Rapid technological transformation is altering labour markets and governance systems, creating new opportunities alongside new risks,” it warns. “The scale of current developments is striking. By the end of 2024, more than 83 million people were internally displaced – the highest number recorded in the modern era.”

Resisting the trend towards migration is a global wave of anti-migrant sentiment, notably in countries that have traditionally welcomed new settlers and refugees. Whipped up by right-wing politicians in the North America, Europe, Oceania and parts of Asia “far-right political actors strategically manufacture anti-immigrant sentiment to garner electoral support through systematic fearmongering and racialization of migrants,” says Olivia Weninger of the Human Rights Research Center. In other words, the protests are less about immigration than about the flexing of raw political power by neofascist minorities.

Nevertheless, immigration was a hot-button issue in the two elections that delivered Trump to power in the US, leading to his unleashing of paramilitaries on the populace and the building of concentration camps, evoking ugly echoes of the 1930s.

The question remains: Is the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment real – or an artefact of the global fascist movement? And the answer, probably, is: both. People are often xenophobic, for no other reasons than fear and ignorance of new arrivals. On the other hand, new arrivals may sometimes come in the form of a Mongol Horde, Vandal or Axis army of settler movement and prove less than friendly to the indigenes. So fear of foreigners has sound basis in the human experience, which is being exploited by local right-wing elements in their quest for personal power.

However, fear and resentment of immigrants will do nothing to stem the tidal surge of migration that is coming. In 2019 the Climate Foresight Report estimated there could be as many as 1 billion migrants moving worldwide by 2050. Five years late Swiss insurance giant Zurich put the estimate of the displaced as high as 1.2 billion – one human in every 8.

Largely dismissed by politicians and media at the time as alarmist, these predictions have acquired far more substance in view of the fact that the Earth’s migrant population has more than doubled since 2000 – and, on a linear projection alone, is likely to more than double again by 2050. If one adds progressive breakdown of global food and water systems, overheating of the climate, state failures, the global rise in authoritarian governments and spontaneous wars (possibly nuclear), the projection of 1.2 billion migrants in 2050 is starting to look very conservative. If the forecast by British actuaries is borne out, of 2-4 billion dead, then the mass migration preceding it will involve more than half the world’s population.

“Humanity’s current path will push societies into deeper crises unless we make major changes,” warns Professor of Ecology Corey Bradshaw. “The planet’s life support systems are already under strain and, without rapid shifts in how we use energy, land, and food, billions of people will face increasing instability. Our study shows these limits are unfolding right now.”

The region worst affected by the burgeoning crisis – and the likely source of most of the outmigration – is the tropics which, by 2050, will contain over 4.5 billion people including two thirds of the world’s children. Tropical Africa, especially, is at risk, but equally so are South Asia and Central America. The tropics will shed their human populations first – and the wave will break over the temperate regions.

In such a scenario, regions such as Europe will face a floodtide of hundreds of millions of African migrants, who will sweep away the nations of south Europe, displacing their existing populations into the countries to their north. Those who know their history will recall the Moors once ruled Spain – and may well do so again. Indeed, if allowed to build to its full force the main impact of the human tsunami will be to largely eradicate the nation state as the principal mode of self-governance.

The human tsunami undeniably represents the principal security threat to all countries and people going forward – not the petty nationalistic rivalries and military chest-thumping that have disgraced human history hitherto. It arises directly from the heart of the Planetary Emergency.

Many countries will resort to military means before they are overthrown and their armies dissolved. But despite all the fear and angst, the human tsunami is not to be halted or even stemmed by force, or the violent prescriptions invoked by xenophobes. Because their own actions are feeding it.

For example, the USA whilst waging an internal pogrom against “illegal immigration” is also doing all in its power to manufacture more migrants globally. By promoting the burning of fossil fuels, the US generates overpressures that increase the probability of famines, searing heatwaves, sea level rise and acute water shortages. Thus, America’s policy solution to the migrant ‘threat’ is to multiply the number of migrants!

Russia and Saudi Arabia, and others, are also doing their best to exacerbate the global migrant flood by mining oil. China, while still adding greatly to climate disruption through its fossil fuel emissions, seems at the same time to partly grasp the suicidal implications and is taking new steps as the world leader in renewable, green energy, while at the same time encouraging its own population to shrink.

The human tsunami can only be contained by finding ways to keep people happily settled in their own homelands. This will involve:

1. An accelerated program to deliver family planning to every woman on Earth and so slow population growth.
2. Urgent worldwide adoption of both renewable food and renewable energy, to overcome hunger, replace fossil fuels and cool the climate as fast as possible.
3. A global program to put back the forests, grasslands and wetlands ruined by human ‘development’ over the past century and repair the Earth’s life support system everywhere.
4. Adoption of a circular global economy, especially for key resources such as water and nutrients, but also for building materials, metals, timber, fibre etc.
5. Redoubling world aid efforts, to assist those regions most likely to collapse to become self-sufficient in food, water and energy.
6. Agreement to ban all nuclear weapons and scale back world military spending, redirecting resources to food, health, education and environmental repair.

All of these measures are readily affordable – by the simple expedient of cutting the world arms budget of $2.7 trillion by 25-30% or so and re-directing the funds to repair of the planet and its ability to sustain human life. Such a cut was accomplished back in the 1990s, so don’t believe anyone who tells you it can’t be done. One trillion dollars would go a long way towards rescuing a habitable planet and forestalling the human tsunami. That should be the budget.

There are many other scientifically-based methods needed to head off global mass migration and most of them can be found in How to Fix a Broken Planet. However those listed above are among the largest and most pressing.

Inaction, apathy and disinterest will allow the human wave to engulf us all.

Julian Cribb Articles

• Sounding the Earth Emergency
• Hothouse Earth: arriving sooner than you think…
• 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

Australia’s Marine Parks Protect Vast Oceans While Vulnerable Coasts Remain Exposed - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Australia’s vast marine parks conceal major protection gaps
along biologically rich and increasingly threatened coastlines

Key Points

Australia protects about 24% of its waters through highly protected no-take areas. Mainland Commonwealth waters receive far lower coverage.[1] Current protection statistics are heavily influenced by remote territorial waters where industrial conflict remains comparatively limited.[2] Research associates fully protected reserves with stronger ecosystem stability and faster recovery after major disturbances.[3] Scientists warn that productive coastal ecosystems and climate-exposed marine regions remain inadequately represented within strict sanctuary networks.[4] More than 270 marine scientists have called for at least 30% high protection across every Australian marine bioregion.[5] Proposed expansions around Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands would add 671,500 square kilometres of highly protected ocean.[6]

At Georges Head in Sydney Harbour the Pacific stretched beyond the sandstone cliffs beneath a pale winter sky.

Days earlier scientists had warned that Australia’s ocean protection system favours distance over ecological urgency.^[5]

A National Figure With a Coastal Blind Spot

Australia’s marine protected estate now covers about 52% of Australian waters under the national accounting system.^[1]

About 24% receives highly protected no-take status where extractive activities face the strongest restrictions.^[1]

Those national totals mask a striking geographic imbalance across Commonwealth marine regions surrounding mainland Australia.^[2]

Analysis by the Marine Futures Lab estimates only 9.6% of mainland Commonwealth waters receive high protection.^[2]

Why Sanctuary Zones Matter

No-take sanctuary zones remove extractive pressure and allow marine populations to rebuild natural age structures and abundance.^[3]

Long-term Great Barrier Reef monitoring found protected reef communities remained more stable during major disturbances.^[3]

Protected reefs also recovered faster after bleaching disease storms and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks.^[3]

Larger fish can produce more larvae creating recruitment benefits that extend beyond reserve boundaries into neighbouring reefs.^[7]

Protection Where Pressure Is Lowest

Scientists describe this pattern as protection biased towards places where human activity creates fewer political and economic conflicts.^[4]

Remote territorial waters therefore lift national percentages while productive mainland ecosystems retain comparatively weaker protection.^[2]

The affected environments include temperate reefs continental shelf ecosystems and coastal habitats supporting fisheries and biodiversity.^[4]

A representative network distributes protection across ecological regions rather than concentrating coverage within politically convenient waters.^[4]

The Scientists’ Demands

More than 270 scientists from 84 institutions have urged stronger protection during Australia’s once-in-a-decade marine park review.^[5]

Their consensus statement calls for at least 30% high protection within every Australian marine bioregion.^[5]

The scientists also seek the removal of industrial trawling long-lining and mining from marine parks.^[5]

They argue effective parks require strong management enforcement and durable protection against future downgrading or shrinking.^[4]

Climate Pressure Along the Temperate East

The temperate east stretches from the southern Great Barrier Reef towards New South Wales coastal waters.^[5]

Scientists identify the region as a climate hot spot facing warming seas urban pressure fishing and biodiversity decline.^[5]

Broader assessments link Australian marine declines with climate change pollution fisheries policy and weak protection placement.^[4]

Declining biodiversity threatens fisheries tourism cultural values and coastal livelihoods dependent upon functioning marine ecosystems.^[4]

Australia can claim enormous protected ocean coverage while leaving substantial ecological gaps near its most heavily used coastlines. Area alone therefore provides an incomplete measure of conservation success.

The proposed Norfolk and Lord Howe expansions would add 671,500 square kilometres of highly protected water. They would also help Australia reach its national 30% target ahead of schedule.

Yet the central governance challenge remains representation. The marine park review offers ministers an opportunity to direct protection towards ecological need while strengthening accountability for management enforcement and long-term conservation outcomes.

References

1. Achieving 30 by 30. Australian Government information outlining national marine protection coverage and the 2030 highly protected target.

2. CMPR GAP. Marine Futures Lab analysis comparing highly protected coverage across mainland and territorial Commonwealth marine regions.

3. Great Barrier Reef no-take marine reserves protect more than just fish. Australian Institute of Marine Science summary of long-term evidence on reserve resilience.

4. The Society for Conservation Biology. Carissa Klein and colleagues assess failures in Australian marine protection placement and management.

5. Australia's marine parks protect places no one goes. The Guardian Australia reports the scientists’ consensus statement and marine park review demands.

6. More protection for Australia's precious ocean. Australian Government announcement detailing proposed expansions around Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands.

7. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority report. Evidence describing recruitment and resilience benefits associated with connected reserve networks.

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The Himalayas Are Entering a New Era of Climate Instability - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Key Points

The August 2026 Nepal-Tibet disaster began with a massive ice-rock collapse rather than a conventional rainstorm.[1] Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers are losing ice at accelerating rates as regional warming intensifies.[2] Snow persistence across the region has reached record lows for four consecutive years.[3] Warmer conditions can increase liquid precipitation and accelerate snow and ice melt at vulnerable elevations.[4] Climate change amplifies hazards while steep terrain and infrastructure can greatly increase flood damage.[5] Australia's climate agencies face a parallel lesson in strengthening hazard monitoring and adaptation planning.[6]

The Himalayas are entering a more unstable climate regime as warming reshapes snow ice rainfall and mountain hazards.^[2]

On 26 August 2026 an ice and rock collapse struck the Nepal-Tibet border with extraordinary speed. The resulting flood swept through the Lhende Khola valley and destroyed homes roads bridges and power infrastructure.^[1]

The disaster has exposed a difficult climate question because several hazards converged within a single mountain system. Rising temperatures are altering glaciers snow cover and frozen ground while development places more people and infrastructure inside exposed valleys.^[2]

Rainfall Is Becoming One Part of a Larger Hazard System

The South Asian monsoon supplies much of the Himalayas' annual precipitation between June and September. Changes in precipitation intensity can therefore influence landslides floods erosion and river discharge across steep catchments.^[7]

Climate physics provides a clear mechanism for heavier rainfall because warmer air can carry more atmospheric moisture. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology uses about seven per cent additional moisture per degree as a useful physical benchmark.^[6]

That mechanism raises the potential for intense downpours but individual Himalayan cloudbursts require event-specific attribution. Researchers must separate greenhouse warming from monsoon variability local circulation and terrain-driven rainfall.^[6]

The August disaster demonstrates why rainfall alone provides an incomplete explanation. The initiating failure involved collapsing ice and rock followed by rapidly moving water sediment and debris.^[1]

Glaciers and Frozen Ground Are Losing Stability

ICIMOD reported in March 2026 that Himalayan glacier ice loss rates have doubled since 2000. Its assessment found ice thickness losses reaching 27 metres since 1975 across monitored areas.^[2]

Warming also changes the physical structure surrounding glaciers. Thawing permafrost can weaken previously frozen rock and sediment while retreating ice can leave unstable slopes and expanding lakes.^[5]

The central Himalaya is showing especially strong changes above about 4,500 metres. Research links shrinking snow and ice cover with rising temperatures and expanding glacial lakes at those elevations.^[8]

The region's recent snow drought adds another layer of instability. ICIMOD recorded four consecutive years of below-normal snow persistence by 2026 with the latest deficit reaching 27.8 per cent below average.^[3]

Water Can Arrive as Rain Instead of Snow

Snow acts as a temporary water store by holding precipitation above the valleys. When temperatures rise snow can melt earlier and precipitation can increasingly fall as rain at elevations that previously received snow.^[4]

Studies from the Himalayan region have identified shifts in snowfall towards higher elevations. Such changes can increase liquid precipitation at lower elevations and alter seasonal runoff patterns.^[4]

The Tibetan Plateau is also experiencing substantial cryospheric change. Research shows increasing glacier melt alongside warming and changing precipitation patterns across central and western parts of the plateau.^[9]

These changes can create competing risks across the same river basin. Earlier melt and reduced snow storage can contribute to seasonal water shortages while intense rainfall and sudden ice failures can produce destructive floods.^[3]

Terrain and Infrastructure Turn Hazards Into Disasters

Mountain valleys concentrate water and debris into narrow channels. An avalanche entering a river can temporarily block flow before releasing a sudden surge carrying enormous quantities of sediment downstream.^[1]

The July 2025 Rasuwa flood demonstrated the same transboundary vulnerability. Nepal's disaster authority recorded a sudden discharge from a supraglacial lake in Tibet that devastated the Lhende River corridor.^[10]

Hydropower stations roads bridges and settlements have expanded along many Himalayan valleys. Their location can increase exposure when steep channels carry fast-moving water sediment and rock.^[5]

The governance challenge therefore extends beyond emissions. Hazard mapping infrastructure standards early-warning systems and transboundary data sharing determine how much physical climate risk becomes human loss.^[5]

Attribution Has Limits But the Climate Signal Is Clear

Scientists can attribute climate influence through observations models and statistical comparisons between present and counterfactual climates. Event attribution then estimates how warming changes probability or intensity.^[6]

For individual Himalayan floods the evidence remains complicated by sparse observations and extreme terrain. Western Nepal and the Tibetan border region have limited high-elevation monitoring compared with lower populated areas.^[5]

Local observations nevertheless provide valuable evidence of changing seasons snow conditions water availability and hazard behaviour. Long-running Himalayan monitoring increasingly allows those observations to be tested against instrumental records.^[11]

The broader attribution is stronger than any single-event claim. Warming is accelerating glacier loss reducing snow persistence and increasing cryospheric instability across the Hindu Kush Himalaya.^[2]

The Nepal-Tibet catastrophe exposes a mountain system under increasing physical stress. Climate change has intensified the background conditions surrounding glaciers snow and frozen terrain.

Yet warming alone cannot explain every collapse. Geological instability monsoon variability steep terrain development and infrastructure decisions can determine the scale of destruction.

That distinction matters for accountability. Governments require stronger monitoring shared warnings safer infrastructure and rigorous land-use planning while emissions reductions address the underlying climatic pressure.

References

1. Rescuers Scour Nepal Flood Debris as Risk of Fresh Flooding Grows. Reuters reports the August 2026 disaster and the glacier-collapse mechanism affecting Nepal and Tibet.

2. Hindu Kush Himalaya Glaciers Losing Ice at Double the Rate Since 2000. ICIMOD documents accelerating glacier loss across the region.

3. Hindu Kush Himalaya Snowpack Crashes to Record Low. ICIMOD reports four consecutive years of below-normal snow persistence.

4. Snowfall Shift and Precipitation Variability Over Sikkim Himalaya. The study examines elevation-dependent warming and shifts between snowfall and rainfall.

5. Everest Region a Hotspot of Cryosphere-Linked Hazards. ICIMOD assesses increasing cryosphere-related hazards and adaptation requirements.

6. Australia's Changing Climate. The Bureau of Meteorology explains the relationship between warming atmospheric moisture and heavy rainfall.

7. Hindu Kush Himalaya Monsoon Outlook 2025. ICIMOD describes monsoon importance and increasing climate-related water hazards.

8. Pattern and Imprints of Elevation-Dependent Warming on Central Himalayan Cryosphere. The study identifies stronger cryospheric changes at higher elevations.

9. Observed Changes in the Climate and Snow Dynamics of the Third Pole. Nature research documents changes in precipitation snowmelt and glacier melt across the Tibetan Plateau.

10. Rasuwa Glacial Flood Situation Report. Nepal's disaster authority documents the July 2025 supraglacial-lake flood along the Lhende River.

11. What Is Climate Change Doing in the Himalaya?. Earth System Science Data presents three decades of observations from Nepal's Pyramid Meteorological Network.

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Collapsing Glaciers, Climate Change and Human Security - 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

For the people of Nepal, climate change isn't just an environmental issue. When a glacier collapses, it's a question of who lives, who dies, who has water, who has a home and whether an entire community remains habitable. That's human security.

This week’s catastrophic flooding in Nepal is an appalling illustration of what that means. A huge mass of ice, rock and debris collapsed high in the Himalayas, generating a devastating surge through valleys and settlements below. 

Hundreds are already confirmed dead and many more remain missing, while villages, roads, bridges, electricity infrastructure and livelihoods have been destroyed. The final toll is not yet known.

Scientists will rightly be cautious about attributing any single glacier collapse directly to climate change. But there's no serious doubt about the broader trend. The Himalayas are warming, glaciers are retreating, permafrost is thawing and mountain slopes are becoming less stable. 

Across the Hindu Kush Himalaya, the rate of glacier loss has doubled since 2000, while the World Meteorological Organization reported that every one of the High Mountain Asian glaciers it monitored lost mass during 2025.

This matters because glaciers aren't just spectacular scenery. They're part of the life-support system for much of Asia. They store water, feed major rivers, sustain agriculture, generate electricity and support communities and economies across national borders. Nearly two billion people depend to some extent on water originating in the Hindu Kush Himalaya.

Photo: The Star.

Climate change creates a cruel paradox for these communities. In the short term, rapid melting can mean too much water as glaciers retreat, glacial lakes grow and unstable slopes collapse. Over the longer term, shrinking glaciers mean less reliable water flowing into rivers during dry periods. The same process can thus increase flood risks and future water scarcity.

This is an example of why climate change is fundamentally a human security issue. We still tend to think of security in terms of borders, armies, weapons and alliances. But human security asks a more basic question: are people actually safe? Do they have secure access to water, food, housing, energy, health care and livelihoods? Can communities withstand disasters without being destroyed or displaced?

A report released by the United Nations Development Programme only months before this disaster warned climate change in the Himalayas was already threatening water, food, energy, livelihoods and communities across the region. Environmental disruption doesn't remain neatly confined to the environment. It cascades through societies and economies.

That's what people mean when they describe climate change as a threat multiplier. It can destroy a bridge and isolate communities, wipe out crops and increase food insecurity, damage power generation, force people from their homes and intensify pressure on governments already struggling with poverty or inequality. In river systems shared by several countries, climate impacts can also become questions of diplomacy and regional security.

The response therefore has to involve both mitigation and adaptation. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because every additional increment of warming increases these risks. At the same time, vulnerable countries need much stronger glacier monitoring, early-warning systems, evacuation planning, resilient infrastructure and cross-border cooperation.

There's a lesson here for Australia too. Our own governments increasingly recognise climate change as a national security risk, yet our political debate still too often treats security spending and climate spending as belonging to completely different worlds. They don't. 

Protecting people means more than defending borders. It means protecting the environmental and social systems that allow people to live safely in the first place. A stable climate, secure food and water supplies, functioning ecosystems, resilient infrastructure and strong communities are all part of national security.

For the people living beneath the Himalayas, that distinction is already painfully clear. Climate change isn't an abstract line on a graph or a problem for some distant future. Sometimes it's a flood. Sometimes it's the destruction of a village. And sometimes, quite literally, it's the mountain coming down.

That's not merely an environmental crisis. That's human security.

Gregory Andrews Climate Change Articles

• Godzilla El Niño Is Here - and It Isn’t Even the Biggest Problem
• The Evolution of Climate Denial: And Where Australia Sits
• Climate Warming Faster Than We Planned For?
• Weather Whiplash: Fasten Your Seatbelts
• Australia’s Flagship Climate Policy Is Failing to Cut Emissions
• Winter's Here, The Snowfields Are Open, But There's No Snow
• Worried About Climate Collapse? Here's Ten Things You Can Actually Do
• Fossil Fuel Fascism: When a Dying Industry Tries to Take Democracy With It
• Climate Policy Counts Dollars and Tonnes. What if We Counted the Dead?
• The Climate Crisis is a Health Crisis
• 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 Photo 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

Australia’s Climate Whiplash Exposes a Nation Still Building for Yesterday - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Australia’s climate emergency is accelerating faster
than its institutions are adapting

Key Points

Climate pollution is increasingly overpowering Australia’s natural climate cycles and intensifying heat extremes.[1] Australia’s disaster systems face rapid swings between heat fire drought and flooding.[1] Fossil fuel approvals continue alongside national emissions targets creating an expanding accountability gap.[2] Reef recovery after monsoonal cooling offers temporary relief while ocean warming continues threatening coral ecosystems.[3] AEMO identifies renewables storage transmission and limited gas as Australia’s least-cost electricity pathway.[4] APRA warns climate risks could leave one quarter of Australian households without home insurance by 2050.[5]

The summer heat arrived with a force that unsettled communities accustomed to Australia’s extremes.

Across the continent scorching temperatures fires floods and rising costs exposed a country confronting several climate pressures simultaneously.^[1]

When Natural Cycles Meet a Hotter Climate

Australia entered summer under La Niña conditions traditionally associated with cooler and wetter weather across large areas.^[1]

Yet January 2026 became Australia’s fourth-hottest January while 2025 ranked as the nation’s fourth-hottest year.^[1]

The Climate Council describes climate pollution as increasingly overpowering natural cycles including El Niño and La Niña.^[1]

That shift matters because communities once planned around familiar seasonal patterns and historical assumptions about risk.

Heat Fire and Flood in Rapid Succession

Six consecutive January days recorded Australian locations reaching at least 49°C while Port Augusta reached 50°C.^[1]

The record placed extreme heat farther south and challenged assumptions about geographical safety from exceptional temperatures.^[1]

Victoria then faced severe fire conditions during January as extreme heat combined with rapidly drying landscapes.^[1]

Elsewhere communities swung from intense heat and dry conditions towards heavy rainfall and destructive flooding within weeks.^[1]

The Accountability Gap in Fossil Fuel Policy

Australia’s climate policy contains an increasingly visible contradiction between emissions targets and continuing fossil fuel development.^[2]

Major approvals create decades of future infrastructure decisions while governments simultaneously promise steep emissions reductions.

Environmental organisations argue that federal approvals still provide insufficient scrutiny of downstream climate consequences from exported fossil fuels.^[2]

Court challenges therefore place growing pressure on Australian environmental law and ministerial accountability for climate harm.^[2]

Oceans Offer Relief and Warning

Late-summer monsoonal conditions cooled parts of the Great Barrier Reef and delivered relief after successive bleaching pressures.^[3]

Northern coral cover rose during the latest monitoring period demonstrating that some reefs retain substantial recovery capacity.^[3]

Scientists nevertheless continue assessing how repeated marine heatwaves affect recovery time between successive bleaching events.

The Reef’s future increasingly depends upon global emissions alongside water quality management local protection and sustained scientific monitoring.^[3]

A Transition Racing Against Physical Risk

AEMO’s 2026 Integrated System Plan identifies renewable generation storage transmission and limited gas as the least-cost pathway.^[4]

The plan depends upon substantial investment as coal generation retires and electricity demand grows through coming decades.^[4]

Small-scale batteries could expand from five gigawatts in 2026 to 35 gigawatts by 2050.^[6]

Meanwhile APRA warns rising weather losses could widen Australia’s home insurance protection gap from one household in seven today.^[5]

The events of Australia’s recent summer reveal a deeper governance problem. Physical climate risks are accelerating across systems built for a more stable climate.

Fire services emergency agencies insurers electricity planners and coastal communities now confront pressures that overlap and reinforce one another. Their capacity depends increasingly upon decisions made far beyond individual disasters.

The central accountability test concerns whether governments match climate targets with infrastructure law investment and fossil fuel decisions. Australia possesses scientific institutions technical capacity and substantial renewable resources. The remaining challenge is governance capable of responding at the speed demanded by the changing climate.

References

1. Breakneck Speed: Summer of Climate Whiplash. Climate Council analysis documenting extreme heat rapid weather shifts and climate pollution’s growing influence over Australian seasonal conditions.

2. Albanese Government’s Fossil Fuel Approvals. Climate Council assessment examining fossil fuel approvals and their implications for Australian climate commitments.

3. Relief for Recovering Reef as Monsoon Cools Waters. Australian Institute of Marine Science reporting on recent coral cover changes and monsoonal cooling.

4. 2026 Integrated System Plan. AEMO’s national electricity roadmap identifying the optimal development pathway towards 2050.

5. Mind the Gap: An Insurance Climate Vulnerability Assessment. APRA stress testing on climate risk insurance affordability and financial system resilience.

6. 2026 Integrated System Plan: Small-Scale Batteries. AEMO projections describing rapid growth in household and commercial battery capacity.

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We’re building a New York‑sized city every month. That’s worrying for our climate - The Conversation

The Conversation - Philip Oldfield   William Craft

Art Wager/Gett

Authors

Philip Oldfield   Head of School and Professor of Architecture, UNSW Built Environment, UNSW   William Craft   Senior Research Associate, School of Built Environment, UNSW

Each of us needs of a roof over our head, classrooms to learn in and offices or space to work from.

To meet this unprecedented demand for new buildings, globally we’re constructing the equivalent of an entire New York City every month.

This provides us with vital infrastructure, but also generates an enormous amount of world-warming emissions.

So how can we build what we need, without harming our planet? Our new research provides some answers.

The need to build

Creating new buildings benefits communities, cities and countries, and eases housing pressure. That’s why Australia’s National Housing Accord is aiming to construct 1.2 million new, well-located homes between 2024 and 2029.

But this Australian effort is dwarfed by the 96,000 new and affordable homes needed worldwide every single day. Tragically, hundreds of millions of people around the world endure homelessness. One in four are living in harmful conditions.

However, construction comes with a climate cost. Each time we build, we use materials and construction processes that release large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions – known as “embodied carbon”.

To understand the scale of embodied carbon, picture a square metre of floor space. Constructing that square metre would release around half a tonne of greenhouse gas emissions. Now scale that up to building a whole New York-sized city every month!

Conventional building practices can release huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Iryna Melnyk/Getty

 

What we studied

Our new study examined trends in office building construction in Australia. We currently have about 170 million square metres of office space across the country, and are set to build a further 100 million square metres by 2049.

To investigate what effect these buildings have on global warming, we modelled their greenhouse gas emissions. We measured both their embodied carbon and operating carbon – the emissions from everyday heating, lighting, cooling and appliances.

We found Australian office buildings are projected to release 138 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions between 2024 and 2049. This number is equivalent to the annual emissions of 36 coal-fired power stations. Given offices make up just 20% of all commercial buildings in Australia, this is only a fraction of our total urban emissions.

A mixed picture

Most surprisingly, operating emissions represented 85% of the total in 2024, but are set to drop to just 15% by 2049. This is because Australia is decarbonising our energy sector by shifting from fossil fuels to solar, wind and other renewables.

However, if we keep building at our current speed and scale, our annual embodied emissions will remain at similar levels. Compared to operating emissions, it’s more difficult to lower embodied carbon because many material supply chains rely on fossil fuels and carbon-intensive practices. The process of manufacturing cement, for example, is responsible for 8% of all global carbon dioxide emissions.

We also compared office building emissions in Australia with emission pathways that would limit the sector’s contribution to global warming below 1.5°C or 2.0°C. However, we found cumulative emissions from offices are over 40% above these pathways. 

This means office buildings will likely blow their carbon budgets within a matter of years. We found Tasmania – which runs almost entirely on renewable energy and has fewer office buildings per capita – is the only state or territory with annual emissions that sit consistently below the 1.5°C pathway.

Total greenhouse gas emissions of the Australian office sector, 2024-2049. Adapted from Craft et al. (2006), CC BY

 

Cutting carbon

Our study measured several ways to reduce embodied carbon in office buildings, summarised below:

How can we make construction more sustainable?

Table: The ConversationSource: Craft W., et al. Get the data Embed Download image Created with Datawrapper

We found combining these strategies could reduce total emissions by over 47 million tonnes, putting the office sector far closer to the 2.0°C emissions pathway target.

These results show the importance of “sufficiency” measures, such as refurbishing existing buildings and constructing smaller, or fewer, new buildings.

Research shows sufficiency strategies work. Consider Sydney’s Quay Quarter Tower. This tower was originally built in 1976 but, by the late 2010s, was older and less useful. Rather than demolish it, architects 3XN and BVN extended the tower to the north and upcycled two-thirds of the original structure. This increased office space while saving around 8,000 tonnes of embodied carbon.

Sydney’s Quay Quarter Tower was extended using upcycled building materials. 3XN

 

More work ahead

Our study suggests embodied carbon will, in the next decade, overtake operating carbon as the leading source of building emissions. This is problematic because most countries don’t impose limits on embodied carbon. As a first step, Australia must regulate embodied carbon emissions as other countries – including Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Sweden – have already done.

We should also offer incentives for the construction sector to refurbish older buildings. Several councils in the United Kingdom have adopted “retrofit first” policies, where builders must at least consider options for refurbishing buildings before simply demolishing or replacing them.

Our ever-growing global population demands millions of new homes, workplaces and community spaces. But to truly tackle climate change, we must find better ways to balance society’s need for new space with a commitment to curb emissions.

Read More

• How low can we go? To cut the carbon that goes into buildings to net zero, we need radical change 
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