Community vs Coal: Climate’s ‘The Castle’ Moment - 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

There was some good climate news this week with a strong ‘vibe’ of The Castle about it: ordinary people standing up for the place they love, taking on powerful interests, and pursuing justice all the way to the High Court.

A group of ordinary Aussies in the Hunter Valley successfully defended a legal challenge to the expansion of the Mount Pleasant coal mine in the High Court of Australia. And just like in the movie, the significance reaches well beyond one decision. 

It’s a reminder that hope and sustained community action can produce real consequences. Even when politics seems stuck!

By a three-to-two majority, the High Court found the NSW Independent Planning Commission had failed to consider whether conditions should be imposed to minimise the coal mines greenhouse gas emissions, including the emissions produced when its coal is burned overseas. Those downstream, or Scope 3, emissions represented about 98 per cent of the project’s total.

It’s a meaningful advance because incremental accumulation of legal decisions matters. Courts establish how legislation must be interpreted, what decision-makers must consider, and when an approval has crossed the line into unlawfulness. So each successful case can give communities a firmer basis for the next challenge.

It can also influence decisions long before anyone enters a courtroom. A planning official preparing an assessment, a company developing an application, or a lawyer advising on an approval must think about whether their approach will withstand scrutiny. That’s how incremental legal progress can have practical effects.

But to me perhaps the biggest thing to celebrate from this decision is the power of community action. People organising around a place they love can achieve something that reaches well beyond their own district.

Yes there are immediate limits to the judgement. It only interprets NSW legislation. So it doesn’t automatically impose identical duties under Commonwealth or other states’ laws. Nor does it ban coal expansions or require every future application to be refused. But it’s a significant victory for accountability and legal precedent.

There’s also an uncomfortable political contradiction for the Albanese government.

Responding to the ruling, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said the government respected the law as interpreted by the High Court. Environment Minister Murray Watt emphasised the judgment concerned NSW legislation and didn’t automatically transfer to Commonwealth decisions. He also returned to the familiar argument that emissions from Australian coal burned overseas count towards the importing country’s emissions.

But here’s the thing, Murray Watt’s focus on an accounting trick doesn’t settle the questions of atmospheric physics or responsibility for approving an activity that produces the coal and its emissions.

As a former climate negotiator, I understand why national emissions inventories allocate emissions between countries. A consistent accounting system matters. But the atmosphere doesn’t where where the pollution occurs or is recorded. The Albanese Government’s spin of “counted overseas” is merely an excuse for treating Australia’s coal emissions as someone else’s problem. The High Court has exposed that weakness. Overseas accounting didn’t remove the obligation to consider the impact of the emissions.

For me, this is what Active Hope looks like. Hope expressed through a local community’s decision to act, even when success is uncertain and the odds look daunting. The Hunter Valley people behind this case didn’t know it would win. They organised and persisted anyway. And their efforts have strengthened legal foundations available to us all. Their local action has left a national legacy.

Community action made a powerful company answer to the law and shone a light on what must be confronted. For those of us who sometimes feel overwhelmed by the scale of the climate crisis and our government’s inaction, that matters. We don’t always need certainty that our actions will succeed before they are worth taking.

The Castle gave us a story about ordinary people standing their ground and winning. These Hunter Valley locals have given us a climate version of our own. That’s active hope. And this week, we got some.

The Castle (1997) celebrated ordinary Aussies standing up to powerful interests. 
Nearly 30 years later, a Hunter Valley community has delivered a climate version.

        Gregory Andrews Climate Change Articles  

Australia’s Crocodile Tears in the Pacific

Climate and National Security: why is Albanese keeping the evidence secret?

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

The Protest That Exposed NSW’s Climate Contradiction - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Pages from climate reports fluttered across the floor of NSW Parliament as 
Question Time gave way to a confrontation over 
coal and the state’s climate commitments

Key Points

Eight Rising Tide activists disrupted NSW Parliament on 13 October 2026.[1] Andrew Sneddon crossed the public gallery barrier and entered the chamber.[1] The protest followed approval of Hunter Valley Operations extensions to 2045.[2] NSW’s Net Zero Commission has warned that coal expansions threaten progress towards emissions targets.[3] A recent High Court ruling has sharpened scrutiny of coal mine approvals and downstream emissions.[4] The incident has renewed questions about parliamentary security and the government’s climate commitments.

On Tuesday, 13 October 2026, eight activists from the climate campaign group Rising Tide shouted from the public gallery and threw pages from government and academic climate reports into the Legislative Assembly. 

One demonstrator crossed the gallery barrier and jumped onto the chamber floor, forcing MPs and parliamentary staff to intervene.^[1]

The protest came less than a fortnight after the approval of a major extension to the Hunter Valley Operations coal mine. 

The decision allows mining to continue in the northern section until 2045 and in the southern section until 2042, subject to conditions.^[2]

The confrontation brought two sharply different concerns into the same room: the right of Parliament to conduct its business without disruption, and the growing dispute over whether NSW can meet its climate targets while extending the life of major coal operations.

A breach inside the chamber

Media reports identified the demonstrator who crossed the barrier as Andrew Sneddon. Labor MP David Saliba, a former Australian Federal Police agent, and Independent MP Michael Regan helped parliamentary staff restrain him. Speaker Greg Piper cut the parliamentary livestream as the incident unfolded.^[1]

The disruption interrupted Question Time for several minutes. Parliamentary security personnel and police special constables detained Sneddon. Reports say he was later released onto Macquarie Street, but the available accounts do not establish precisely how long proceedings were suspended or what final legal outcome followed.^[5]

Attorney-General Michael Daley condemned the incident and described the demonstrator as a “ratbag”. Treasurer Daniel Mookhey also emphasised the need for peaceful democratic advocacy. Piper announced a review of Parliament’s security arrangements.^[1]

The breach was serious. MPs and staff must be able to work without intimidation or physical interference. But the confrontation also drew attention to the policy dispute that brought the protesters to Parliament in the first place.

Why Rising Tide chose this moment

Rising Tide organised the demonstration to challenge the Hunter Valley Operations approval and the Minns government’s broader approach to fossil fuels. The activists carried pages from climate reports, including material from the NSW Net Zero Commission. Their message was that government decisions on coal sit uneasily alongside its stated climate objectives.^[1]

Sneddon said his actions reflected what he saw as the government’s failure to respond adequately to the climate crisis. He called for a fair and urgent transition for coal workers and regional communities, as well as an end to approvals for new fossil fuel projects.^[6]

Rising Tide has pursued disruptive action to draw attention to coal exports and climate policy. Taking that campaign into the parliamentary chamber marked a particularly direct challenge to the political process. It also exposed the tension between protest as a means of forcing public attention and the rules that protect parliamentary proceedings.

Disruption can attract attention, but it can also shift public debate away from a campaign’s stated purpose and towards the behaviour of its participants. The immediate security response was unavoidable. The questions surrounding coal approvals, emissions and government accountability remain.

The coal decision behind the confrontation

The NSW Independent Planning Commission approved the Hunter Valley Operations North and South continuation projects on 30 September. Its decision followed 10,576 written submissions and 129 verbal submissions during a three-day public hearing.^[2]

The approval secures the continuation of a major regional mining operation. According to ABC reporting, the mine had been due to close in December 2026, putting an estimated 1,500 jobs at risk. The government has presented the extension as important to workers, suppliers and communities whose livelihoods depend on the operation.^[7]

The Commission attached conditions covering greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy and additional carbon offsets. It also included provisions intended to limit exports to jurisdictions with emissions-reduction policies aligned with the Paris Agreement’s goals or comparable frameworks.^[2]

Those conditions form an important part of the case for approval. They do not, however, settle the wider question of whether extending coal production for decades is compatible with NSW’s legislated emissions targets. That question has become more pressing as the state’s own climate advisers warn that progress remains inadequate.

For mining communities, the stakes are immediate. Jobs, business income and regional economic stability matter now, not just in future climate projections. But long-term approvals also shape the choices available to those communities as Australia moves towards a lower-emissions economy.

Climate targets under pressure

NSW has legislated targets to reduce emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and 70 per cent by 2035, measured against the relevant statutory baseline. The Net Zero Commission’s 2026 annual progress report warns that the state is not cutting emissions fast enough to meet those commitments.^[3]

The Commission has also warned that continued coal mine expansions and extensions obstruct decarbonisation. Its findings raise a fundamental policy question: can the state deliver the required emissions cuts while allowing major fossil fuel operations to continue for decades?^[8]

The government and coal producers point to employment, royalties and the economic importance of mining to regional NSW. Climate advocates argue that extending the life of coal operations risks entrenching fossil fuel production and its associated emissions. Both sides invoke the future of regional communities, but they differ sharply over what will provide lasting economic security.

The issue is not simply whether NSW can expand renewable energy or reduce emissions from electricity generation. It is whether decisions across the planning system support the state’s climate commitments. A target on paper carries limited weight if individual approvals make it harder to achieve.

Independent advice also raises questions about accountability. Governments can publish targets and report progress, but the test comes when they make decisions with consequences extending well beyond the next election. The HVO approval has brought that test into sharp focus.

A High Court ruling sharpens the issue

On 7 October, the High Court delivered a significant ruling in a case concerning the proposed Mount Pleasant coal mine expansion near Muswellbrook. The 3–2 decision found deficiencies in the treatment of downstream emissions from coal burned overseas, commonly known as Scope 3 emissions.^[4]

The case was brought by the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group. The judgment overturned the approval for the Mount Pleasant expansion after finding problems with the planning assessment’s treatment of the relevant legal requirements concerning emissions and mitigation conditions.^[4]

The decision does not automatically invalidate the separate HVO approval. The NSW government argues that HVO’s assessment considered Scope 3 emissions in detail and imposed conditions to minimise their impact. The legal position of that approval remains a separate matter.^[9]

Even so, the ruling has raised the stakes for future coal decisions. Planning authorities must comply with the law when assessing the impacts of proposed developments. Where downstream emissions are relevant, decision-makers cannot simply leave the issue unexplained or assume it has no bearing on the assessment.

The judgment also gives communities challenging coal projects a significant legal reference point. It does not predetermine every future case, but it reinforces the importance of examining how planning decisions address climate impacts and the conditions intended to manage them.

Security and democratic accountability

The breach of Parliament and the merits of the coal approval are separate issues. Elected representatives and parliamentary staff must be able to conduct proceedings safely. Public galleries allow people to observe their elected representatives, but visitors must respect the rules that protect the chamber and its work.

Piper’s security review should establish how the demonstrator crossed the barrier and whether existing procedures need to change. A thorough review can address weaknesses in access controls without confusing security questions with the broader debate about public participation in climate policy.

Daley’s condemnation reflects the government’s concern about conduct inside the chamber. But condemning the protest does not answer the policy questions raised by it. NSW’s climate commitments, the evidence on emissions and the consequences of extending coal production still require scrutiny.

The challenge is to protect parliamentary democracy while preserving meaningful public accountability. Protesters do not have the right to disrupt proceedings or endanger others. Equally, governments should not treat an objectionable protest as a reason to avoid legitimate questions about decisions with long-term environmental and economic consequences.

The events of 13 October brought the urgency of climate activism into direct conflict with the government’s defence of continued coal production. Rising Tide’s tactics disrupted Parliament and prompted a necessary security response. But the underlying argument concerns the direction of NSW climate policy and the decisions being made in its name.

The HVO approval includes conditions, and the government argues that the mine supports vital regional jobs. At the same time, the state’s climate advisers say emissions reductions must accelerate. The recent High Court ruling shows that the treatment of climate impacts can also determine whether a coal approval meets legal requirements.

Accountability requires more than condemning a breach of parliamentary rules. The government must explain how long-lived coal approvals fit its legislated targets. Parliament must protect its proceedings while ensuring that consequential public decisions remain open to scrutiny. Those obligations stand regardless of the methods chosen by the protesters.

References

1. Climate protester restrained after interrupting NSW parliament. The Guardian, 13 October 2026. Reports the gallery breach, the protest group, the interruption and the response from MPs.

2. Hunter Valley Operations coal mine approved with conditions. NSW Independent Planning Commission, 30 September 2026. The official decision summary outlines the approvals, consultation and emissions-related conditions.

3. 2026 Annual Progress Report. NSW Net Zero Commission. Assesses progress towards the state’s legislated emissions targets and identifies the need for faster reductions.

4. Hunter Valley community group wins landmark High Court climate change case over coalmine. The Guardian, 7 October 2026. Explains the ruling concerning the Mount Pleasant expansion and downstream emissions.

5. Man detained as Rising Tide crashes NSW question time. The Australian, 13 October 2026. Reports the activist’s detention and the immediate response to the breach.

6. Climate protester restrained by MPs after interrupting NSW parliament. The Guardian live coverage, 13 October 2026. Includes Sneddon’s statement explaining his motivation and demands.

7. Planning commission approves bid to extend life of Hunter Valley Operations coal mine. ABC News, 30 September 2026. Provides context on the mine’s expected closure and the estimated jobs at risk.

8. Net Zero Commission says NSW unlikely to meet emissions reduction targets. ABC News, July 2026. Reports the Commission’s concerns about coal expansions and the state’s climate targets.

9. MACH Energy High Court decision. NSW Government, 7 October 2026. Sets out the government’s response to the Mount Pleasant judgment and its position on the HVO approval.

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Young Canadians Put Ottawa’s Climate Record on Trial - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Fifteen young Canadians will take the Federal Government to court in Vancouver
on 26 October, arguing that its climate policies violate their constitutional rights

Key Points

Fifteen young Canadians allege that successive federal governments have violated their Charter rights through climate inaction.[1] The plaintiffs want the court to declare a breach of their rights and order the government to produce a climate recovery plan.[2] The plaintiffs, aged 17 to 24, include Kira Young, who fled Yellowknife during the 2023 wildfire emergency.[3] Federal research found Canada had warmed nearly twice as fast as the global average since 1970.[3] A Montana judge dismissed a comparable youth climate case in October 2025, citing legal barriers to standing and remedies.[4] In Australia, the Federal Court rejected a climate duty-of-care claim brought by Torres Strait Islander elders in 2025.[5]

In the summer of 2023, as wildfires threatened Yellowknife, Kira Young packed the family car and headed south. 

The evacuation order covered almost all of the city's 20,000 residents. 

Three years later, Young, now 20, is preparing to confront the Canadian Government over the climate policies she believes are putting her generation at risk.^[3]

Young is one of 15 plaintiffs in La Rose v His Majesty the King, a landmark challenge alleging that successive federal governments have breached their obligations under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

The constitutional case begins in Vancouver on 26 October, with hearings expected to run for about five weeks.^[6]

The constitutional challenge

At the heart of the case is section 7 of the Charter, which protects the right to life, liberty and security of the person. 

The young plaintiffs argue that the federal government's contribution to climate change threatens those rights. They come from seven provinces and one territory.^[1]

Their challenge extends beyond emissions targets. They also question federal support for fossil fuel industries and policies they say are inconsistent with the best available climate science. They want the court to declare that the government has violated their rights and require it to develop a climate recovery plan. The pretrial exchange of documents and expert evidence reportedly continued until January 2026.^[2]

The government has fought the case from the outset. Federal lawyers argued that the claims were non-justiciable, meaning they were matters the courts could not properly decide. In October 2020, Federal Court Justice Michael Manson struck out the claim. The plaintiffs appealed, keeping their challenge alive.^[2]

In December 2023, the Federal Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that the case could proceed to trial on the section 7 claim. Lawyers for the plaintiffs expect closing arguments during the week beginning 22 February 2027. The Vancouver hearing is scheduled to open at 9.30am on Monday 26 October.^[1][6]

Young lives already affected

The plaintiffs are now between 17 and 24 years old. For many, climate change is not an abstract debate about future risks. Their accounts describe the disruption already caused by extreme heat, wildfires, flooding and other forms of severe weather.^[7]

Some have watched floods damage family homes or extreme weather destroy crops. Others have endured smoke-filled summers, concerns about contaminated water and the erosion of cultural heritage and traditional ways of life. 

Their case argues that the damage reaches beyond property and the environment, affecting physical health, psychological wellbeing and the freedom to make decisions about their futures.^[7]

Lauren Wright, 22, wants governments to be held accountable when they miss emissions targets and then invoke competing priorities to explain their failure. She argues that the extreme events intensified by rising temperatures cannot simply become a recurring feature of young people's lives.^[3]

Albert Lalonde, 24, describes the difficulty of planning an adult life against the prospect of environmental collapse. Young, meanwhile, believes climate change remains a challenge Canadians can still address. Her experience of fleeing Yellowknife, after an 18-hour drive south with her family, gives that conviction a personal dimension.^[3]

In its 2020 defence, the federal government acknowledged that climate change is real and has significant effects on Canada. The legal dispute is therefore not simply about whether the threat exists. It is about the government's responsibility for addressing it and whether its actions expose young people to an unacceptable risk.^[2]

Climate science meets political reality

The case arrives as Canada confronts mounting evidence of a rapidly changing climate. A federal report released in September found that the country had warmed nearly twice as fast as the global average since 1970. 

Wildfires have burned record areas in recent years, while smoke from Canadian fires has travelled far beyond the affected regions. In the summer of 2026, that smoke briefly left Toronto with the world's worst air quality, according to the cited report.^[3]

At the same time, Canada's political direction has shifted. Prime Minister Mark Carney supports expanding oil production as part of an effort to reduce the country's economic dependence on the United States. He has also acknowledged that the emissions targets set by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, cannot be achieved. Lalonde sees the shift as a retreat, saying Canada is “literally going back to the 1970s”.^[3]

Canada's climate accountability framework was established in 2021 through the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. The legislation requires emissions targets, detailed plans and regular progress reports. Canada's 2030 target is to reduce emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels.^[8]

The legislation is now the focus of a separate legal challenge. In June 2026, Sophia Mathur, Marie Maltais and Shirley Barnea took the Carney government to federal court, arguing that its climate policy rollbacks breach the Act. 

The Canadian Climate Institute projects that Canada's emissions in 2035 will exceed the level required by the net-zero pathway by 91.9 million tonnes.^[8]

Together, the cases raise a difficult question for governments that legislate climate targets but struggle to meet them: what practical accountability follows when promised action falls short?

A growing international test

The Canadian proceedings form part of a wider wave of climate litigation aimed at holding governments to account. In 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of a group of older Swiss women who argued that Switzerland had failed to do enough to protect them from climate change. 

In 2025, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on states' obligations under international law to protect the climate system for present and future generations.^[3]

The outcomes, however, have been far from uniform. In October 2025, Montana federal judge Dana Christensen dismissed Lighthiser v Trump, a youth-led challenge to President Donald Trump's executive orders supporting fossil fuels. 

The judge described climate change as a health emergency for children but concluded that the plaintiffs lacked standing, the legal right to bring the case. Several had previously been involved in the Juliana climate litigation.^[4]

Christensen also ruled that the court lacked authority to grant the remedies the young plaintiffs sought. The hearing had included testimony from youth plaintiffs and six expert witnesses, but the judge accepted the federal government's arguments on both standing and the limits of judicial power.^[4]

The Canadian case began in October 2019, when the 15 young people filed their claim just hours before Greta Thunberg was due to address a climate strike in Vancouver. The filing came a month after Thunberg and 15 other children lodged a complaint with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, challenging governments' failure to act adequately on climate change.^[9]

The contrast between the European, international and American proceedings highlights the legal uncertainty surrounding climate accountability. Courts may accept that climate change threatens human health and fundamental rights yet disagree about whether, and how, judges can compel governments to change policy.

The Australian parallel

Australia has already confronted a related question through the case brought by Torres Strait Islander elders Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai. They sued the Commonwealth in negligence, arguing that the government owed them a duty of care in relation to climate change and the threats facing their communities. The Federal Court dismissed their class action in 2025.^[5]

The court found that the Commonwealth's control over national emissions targets did not establish the duty of care the elders claimed. It also identified difficulties in proving a direct connection between emissions and the particular damage suffered by the islands. 

Law firm Burges Salmon has described the litigation as a landmark challenge to national climate policy, rather than to an individual development project.^[5]

Australia now has a legislated target to cut emissions by 62 to 70 per cent below 2005 levels by 2035. Yet the government's own projections indicate that current policies would deliver a reduction of only 48 per cent by that year. Projected cumulative emissions for 2031 to 2035 would exceed the relevant emissions budget by 20 to 34 per cent.^[10]

The Canadian and Australian cases use different legal routes. The Canadian plaintiffs are relying on constitutional rights, while the Torres Strait elders pursued a negligence claim. Both, however, confront the problem of turning the government's responsibility for climate policy into a legal obligation that courts can enforce.

The Vancouver trial will test whether a government can be held constitutionally accountable for climate policies that young people say threaten their lives, health and future choices. At stake is not only the record of successive Canadian governments, but also the extent to which courts can intervene when political commitments fail to match the scale of the climate threat.

International decisions offer no settled answer. European and international rulings have recognised significant state responsibilities, while the Montana case demonstrates the procedural and constitutional obstacles that can defeat even a strongly argued youth challenge.

For Australia, the implications are particularly relevant. The Torres Strait elders' negligence case failed, while current emissions projections point to a substantial gap between national policy and the 2035 target. 

Whether the Canadian plaintiffs can establish a constitutional remedy may help shape the wider debate over how governments are held accountable for climate promises they make but do not deliver.

References

1. Unanimous Federal Court of Appeal decision paves path to trial for youth-led climate case (Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation). Summarises the December 2023 appeal ruling that allowed the La Rose case to proceed to trial under section 7.

2. La Rose v. His Majesty the King (Climate Case Chart). Provides the case history, the plaintiffs' claims, the federal government's defence and the trial arrangements.

3. Young Canadians sue government over alleged climate failures (AFP via eNCA, 6 October 2026). Reports on the plaintiffs, Canada's warming trends, political developments and international climate litigation.

4. Montana Court Dismisses Youth-led Lawsuit Challenging Trump Executive Orders Boosting Fossil Fuels (Inside Climate News, 16 October 2025). Examines Judge Christensen's reasons for dismissing Lighthiser v. Trump.

5. Pabai Pabai: an analysis of a landmark judgment (Burges Salmon). Analyses the Federal Court's decision rejecting the Torres Strait Islanders' duty-of-care claim.

6. Youth v. Canada: Trial Headquarters (Our Children's Trust). Provides the trial schedule, including the 26 October start date, expected hearing period and anticipated closing arguments in February 2027.

7. The plaintiffs (West Coast Environmental Law). Profiles the young plaintiffs and the climate-related harms they describe.

8. Youth taking Carney government to court over alleged illegal climate rollbacks (The Pointer, 19 June 2026). Covers the separate legal challenge to Canada's climate policy rollbacks and the country's emissions targets.

9. 15 Canadian Kids Sue Their Government for Failing to Address Climate Change (Inside Climate News, 25 October 2019). Documents the original filing and its timing alongside Greta Thunberg's climate activism and child-rights complaint.

10. Australia's emissions projections 2025 (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water). Provides official projections of Australia's emissions against its 2030 and 2035 targets.

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Stored Ocean Heat, a Record Pacific Peak and the Test Facing Australia - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Forecasters expect the strongest El Niño on record
to peak in December on a hotter planet

Key Points

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) put the odds of a record event at 75 per cent. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) forecasts a peak near +3.7°C.[1] [2] This El Niño could lift global land temperatures about 1.2°C and cause more than 450,000 extra heat deaths worldwide by February.[3] Australia's Bureau of Meteorology reports record upper-ocean heat and weaker trade winds across the western Pacific.[4] The national fire council AFAC flags increased bushfire risk across parts of six states and the Northern Territory.[5] India's monsoon finished 13 per cent below normal, an 11-year low, and threatens winter wheat sowing.[6] Australia's own risk assessment names First Nations and remote communities among the most exposed. NSW has approved coal mining at Hunter Valley Operations until 2045.[7] [8]

In January, Alice Springs (Mparntwe) endured 20 days above 40°C. 

Researchers who interviewed 30 First Nations people in central Australia found that homes trapped heat and power supplies faltered. 

Communities adapted by rescheduling activities and sharing cooling resources.^[9]

El Niño, a periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, now strengthens toward the most extreme level on record. 

This event tests whether Australian governments have acted on the warnings they hold. 

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) forecasts a near-100 per cent chance that it persists through February 2027.^[2]

A Forecast Beyond the Record Books

In September, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gave a 75 per cent chance that October to December would surpass every El Niño since 1950. It set the bar at +2.5°C on the Relative Oceanic Niño Index, a Pacific measure that removes tropical-wide warming. 

The agency also sees a better than 90 per cent chance of a very strong event during the northern winter.^[1]

The WMO forecasts central Pacific (Niño 3.4) temperatures near +3.7°C above normal for October to December. That reading would beat the previous seasonal record of +2.6°C from November 2015 to January 2016. The anomaly climbed from +1.6°C in June to +2.5°C in August.^[2]

The benchmark depends on the index. NOAA's relative index still ranks 1997-98 above the current reading, while daily Niño 3.4 data show a new extreme. On 21 September the daily value hit +3.08°C, topping the +3.02°C of November 2015.^[3]

The Bureau of Meteorology declared El Niño on 16 June as Niño 3.4 readings passed the +0.8°C threshold. The weekly relative Niño 3.4 value reached +2.72°C in late September. Further intensification looks likely during the rest of spring.^[4][10]

Borrowed Heat on a Hotter Baseline

El Niño releases heat the ocean has already stored beneath the surface. WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo told the Global Heat Forum that this ocean is the warmest on record. Strong events therefore often coincide with some of the hottest years on record, as in 2024.^[2]

Climate Council scientists place this event in an Australia significantly hotter than 120 years ago. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached its highest level in 800,000 years. Andrew Watkins says today's La Niña years run hotter than El Niño years that counted as hot last century.^[10]

The University of Chicago's Climate Impact Lab estimates that this El Niño could lift global land temperatures about 1.2°C. By February, that heat could cause more than 450,000 additional deaths worldwide. NOAA climate scientist Nathaniel Johnson expects the peak to arrive within the next few months.^[3]

Whether climate change strengthens El Niño itself remains contested. Johnson says the science remains unsettled on how warming affects an event this extreme. Climate scientist Nathan Lenssen notes that a warmer ocean gives El Niño more energy to release.^[3]

The Machinery Beneath the Surface

The earliest warning signs sat below the surface. The Bureau reports that equatorial upper-ocean heat in July reached the highest level on record since 1979. That reserve fuels further warming at the surface, according to the Bureau.^[4]

Atmospheric signals followed the ocean heat. Trade winds, the steady easterlies that push warm water westward, have weakened or reversed across the western tropical Pacific. The Southern Oscillation Index, the Tahiti-Darwin pressure difference, averaged -29.1 in July, the most negative July on record.^[4]

NOAA says the coupled ocean-atmosphere system reflects a strengthening El Niño. Coupling means the warm ocean and the shifting winds and rainfall amplify one another. Convection and rainfall have intensified from the central to the eastern Pacific.^[1]

Strength and ocean heat reserves also set the event's lifespan. The Bureau expects warming to continue through spring and peak in late spring or summer. It expects the event to persist into autumn 2027.^[4]

Record Strength, Uneven Consequences

A record Pacific signal delivers uneven local outcomes. The Bureau stresses that El Niño is only one of many influences on Australia's seasonal weather. The Indian Ocean Dipole, the sea-surface temperature gap between the eastern and western tropical Indian Ocean, also steers rainfall.^[4]

The Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC), the national council for fire and emergency services, has published its spring outlook. It flags increased bushfire risk in parts of six states and the Northern Territory, though fires can still strike elsewhere. Below-average rainfall has raised that risk in eastern Tasmania and parts of Victoria.^[5]

Overseas, impacts spread beyond the tropics by late fall. Johnson expects more rain over the southern United States and drier conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Lenssen cautions that ocean warming has made some historical mid-latitude changes less likely, as California's modest 2023-24 rainfall showed.^[3]

Oceans around Australia already run warm. In early August, waters off southern New South Wales and eastern Tasmania ran 2 to 3°C above average. The Bureau reports that global sea-surface temperatures remain at record levels.^[4]

Who Pays the Price

India's southwest monsoon finished 13 per cent below normal, an 11-year low, according to rating agency ICRA. Farmers planted 1.2 per cent less area to kharif, the monsoon-season crop, than a year earlier. Low reservoir storage in Punjab and Rajasthan also threatens winter wheat sowing, ICRA warns.^[6]

Physician Kate Charlesworth says extreme heat causes about 10 times more hospitalisations than any other extreme weather. Households also paid up to $700 more for home and contents insurance in 2025 than a year earlier. Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie says Australians bear the second-highest disaster costs in the world.^[10]

The Australian Climate Service released Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment in 2025, identifying who faces the greatest risk. Those groups include the elderly, the very young, people with health conditions, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Remote residents ask for local housing design that withstands heat, shaded communal spaces and timely repairs.^[7][9]

Planning decisions on fossil fuels proceed beside those findings. The NSW Independent Planning Commission has approved extending Hunter Valley Operations coal mining until 2045. The Climate Council estimates the project would release more than 800 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.^[8]

The evidence converges on a single mechanism. El Niño releases heat that human-driven warming has already stored in the ocean. NOAA, the WMO and the Bureau agree on the scale of the coming peak.

Local outcomes remain uneven, and that uncertainty raises the value of preparation. Older Australians, remote First Nations communities and households facing higher premiums carry the heaviest exposure. Heat, fire and rising insurance costs can arrive together.

Responsibility rests with governments that hold the warnings and sign the approvals. Adaptation plans carry weight when emissions decisions follow the same evidence. Accountability begins with that alignment, and the coming summer will measure it.

References

1. NOAA Climate Prediction Center, ENSO Diagnostic Discussion (September 2026). NOAA's monthly outlook supplies the 75 per cent probability of a historic event and the better than 90 per cent chance of a very strong one.

2. World Meteorological Organization, Sea-surface temperatures reflect strengthening El Niño. The WMO's October update sets out the +3.7°C forecast, the record comparison and Celeste Saulo's explanation of stored ocean heat.

3. Science News Explores, 2026's El Niño is record-breaking. Two US climate scientists explain the daily record, the Climate Impact Lab heat-death estimate and the debate over climate change and El Niño.

4. Bureau of Meteorology, Southern hemisphere monitoring. The Bureau's monitoring page reports the Niño 3.4 values, ocean heat, trade winds, Southern Oscillation Index and outlook into autumn 2027.

5. AFAC, Seasonal Bushfire Outlook Spring 2026. The national fire council maps where fire authorities and Bureau forecasters expect increased bushfire risk this spring.

6. Business Standard, Monsoon deficit threatens crop output, adds to food inflation risks. The report summarises ICRA's analysis of India's 13 per cent monsoon shortfall and its risks for crops and reservoirs.

7. Clayton Utz, Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment Report and National Adaptation Plan. The law firm's summary lists the groups the federal assessment identifies as facing the greatest climate risks.

8. The Canberra Times, Life of major coal project extended until 2045. The AAP report covers the approval of the Hunter Valley Operations extension and the Climate Council's 800 million tonne estimate.

9. Phys.org, Extreme heat is harming remote First Nations communities. Researchers who interviewed 30 First Nations people describe heat-trapping homes, unreliable power and community-led adaptation priorities.

10. Climate Council, Climate pollution and El Niño: a dangerous double act. Climate Council scientists and a physician outline the combined risk of El Niño, climate pollution, heat illness and rising insurance costs.

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A Gippsland Lake Reveals How Colonisation Primed Australia's Forests to Burn - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Colonisation loaded south-east Australian forests with fuel
a century before human-driven climate change began

Key Points

Researchers read 1,000 years of pollen and charcoal in a metre-long sediment core from Purghagoolah in Croajingolong National Park.[1] The Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation co-authored the Nature paper and provided cultural authority for research on Gunaikurnai Country.[2] Hot fires came first, driving a fourfold surge in eucalypts that thickened open woodland into fuel-loaded forest.[3] Cultural burning applies low-temperature fire through a responsive right time, right place approach that differs from government hazard reduction burns.[1] Victoria's pre-colonial and current vegetation maps look identical at the site, although pollen shows open woodland before colonisation.[2] Fire scientist David Bowman wants substantial, ongoing government investment in Aboriginal fire manager groups to restore fire regimes.[4]

Six researchers carried coring equipment through recently burnt forest to reach Purghagoolah, a lake in Croajingolong National Park. 

The park in East Gippsland ranks among south-eastern Australia's most fire-prone forests. 

The team set out to reconstruct vegetation, fire and erosion across the past 1,000 years.^[4]

The 2019-20 Black Summer fires burnt more than 1.5 million hectares in Victoria and killed five people. 

That season prompted the study. 

Researchers worked with several Aboriginal communities, focusing on wetlands, lakes and forests.^[5]

Reading a Millennium in Lake Mud

Purghagoolah, or Lake Elusive, covers about 40 hectares and reaches 21 metres deep. The lake sits in Gippsland, Victoria, on Gunaikurnai Country. Researchers took the core from the lake's deepest point.^[6]

The team extracted a sediment core, a cylinder of lake-bed mud, on 9 February 2021. Each layer records one slice of time. Dating with lead-210 and radiocarbon places the core between about 844 and 2021 CE.^[6]

Pollen grains reveal which plants grew near the lake. Charcoal particles record fire regimes, the pattern of how often and how intensely fires burn. Together these proxies, indirect measures that sediment retains, trace vegetation and fire through time.^[1]

Infrared analysis of the charcoal added fire temperature to the record. Researchers matched chemical signatures that plants leave at different burning temperatures against the sediment. Cool cultural fires gave way to hot wildfires after colonisation, with high-temperature charcoal rising from the mid-nineteenth century.^[3][7]

Gunaikurnai Country and the Research Partnership

The Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation represents traditional owners of the area. Researchers worked with the corporation to reconstruct 1,000 years of vegetation and fire history. Lead author Michael-Shawn Fletcher describes the pre-colonial landscape as cared for and managed.^[1]

The corporation co-authored the paper and provided cultural authority for research on Gunaikurnai Country. It contributed knowledge of Country that shaped the study design and the reading of the record. It also reviewed and approved the manuscript before publication.^[2]

Gunaikurnai elder Uncle Russell Mullett says his ancestors lived with towera, meaning fire, as part of daily life. Country turns extremely dangerous for people, animals and plants once towera stops, he says. The study supplies firm scientific evidence to support towera land management initiatives, in his view.^[5]

Change-point analysis, a statistical method that detects abrupt shifts in a time series, tested when the landscape changed. Across 5,000 reconstructions, the mean break in eucalypt cover sits at 1867 CE. That timing lies within the period of colonial frontier violence that removed the Gunaikurnai from Country.^[2]

How the Wildfire Loop Tightened

Historical evidence shows the Gunaikurnai regularly burnt the land until the British removed them violently in the mid-nineteenth century. For 800 years before that, the record shows open woodland of grasses and few trees. Woody shrubs then spread across the area.^[7]

Fletcher says the removal of the Gunaikurnai changed the balance of trees and shrubs and drove more fires. He dates the shift to a land use change that preceded climate change by more than a century. Hot fires then triggered eucalypt recruitment, the establishment of new seedlings, and the eucalypts drove further fire.^[1]

Eucalypt cover rose fourfold, and open woodland became forest. Fire temperatures climbed and soil erosion increased as the landscape changed. Those changes preceded human-caused warming, so land use set the stage for the climate-driven fires.^[2]

Researchers call this cycle a catastrophic wildfire loop. Each hot fire produces dense regrowth that primes the next blaze. Fletcher says climate now largely drives the loop, though the initial change came from land use.^[1][5]

Cultural Burning and Mainstream Management

First Nations people practise cultural burning, using low-temperature fire to keep land safe and productive. Communities still apply it in parts of Australia today.^[1]

Practitioners follow a responsive right time, right place approach. Government agencies run prescribed hazard reduction burns, planned fires that cut fuel, and those methods differ. The research gives scientific evidence for the value of cultural burning, Fletcher says.^[1]

The paper concludes that restoring cultural burning and supporting Traditional Owners is essential to mitigating wildfire risk. Croajingolong has long carried a pristine wilderness label, yet it is among south-eastern Australia's most repeatedly burnt areas. Fletcher says the forest people protect there is a product of colonisation, and that legacy now imperils its survival.^[3]

Fletcher hopes the findings open a conversation about possibilities for a new future. In that future, communities could start getting control of the catastrophic fire problem. Integrating Indigenous knowledge into modern fire management underpins that prospect, he says.^[1]

Scientific Significance and Accountability Gaps

University of Tasmania fire scientist David Bowman, who sits outside the author team, calls the research significant. He says the research adds to a growing realisation about the legacy of lost Indigenous fire management. He calls long-term records critically important for tracing how fire regimes respond to climate.^[1]

One big question in wildfire science, Bowman says, is how unprecedented current fire events are. Introduced animals and, in places, introduced plants have worsened the changes, though lost traditional fire management remains very significant. He calls the research a pipe opener for a conversation about managing landscapes as the fire crisis worsens.^[1]

Bowman calls the evidence very convincing that the loss of Indigenous fire management drove drastic changes in fire regimes. He wants trials of thinning for overgrown forests and cultural burning, with substantial ongoing government investment. Professor Trent Penman of the University of Melbourne says fire predictions have underestimated human influences.^[4]

Victoria's pre-1750 vegetation map models potential natural vegetation from climate and soils, then adds historical records and explorer accounts. At Purghagoolah that map and the 2005 map look effectively identical, although pollen shows open woodland. The authors say the national baseline wrongly treats post-colonial vegetation as the natural reference condition.^[2]

The Purghagoolah record shows colonial land use loaded south-east Australian forests with fuel long before warming began. Climate change now amplifies a vulnerability that official baselines treat as natural.

Vegetation baselines and the wilderness label for Croajingolong rest on assumptions that this evidence challenges. Agencies that manage these forests carry responsibility for testing those assumptions against the sediment record.

Traditional Owners hold knowledge that kept this landscape stable for centuries. Governments now face the task of funding Traditional Owner-led fire management, a step that scientists such as Bowman consider urgent. Accountability for the fire crisis therefore extends beyond emissions to the land management decisions that shaped these forests.

References

1. ‘Catastrophic wildfire loop’ created after colonisation left parts of Australia more at risk from bushfires, study finds. Guardian Australia report on the Nature study, with comments from lead author Michael-Shawn Fletcher and fire scientist David Bowman.

2. Australia’s current wildfire crisis linked to colonial land-use change. Peer-reviewed Nature paper by Fletcher and colleagues, including the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, reconstructing 1,000 years of vegetation and fire at Purghagoolah.

3. Australia’s bushfire crisis linked to colonial land-use change. University of Melbourne media release summarising the sediment findings, the fourfold eucalypt surge and the infrared charcoal analysis.

4. BRIEFING ALERT: Australia’s current bushfire crisis linked to British colonisation. Australian Science Media Centre briefing with expert reaction from Professor David Bowman and Professor Trent Penman.

5. Indigenous cultural burning could break catastrophic bushfire cycle, study finds. Australian Associated Press report, republished by Dubbo Photo News, quoting Fletcher and Gunaikurnai elder Uncle Russell Mullett on the study and towera.

6. Multiproxy palaeoecological record from Purghagoolah (Lake Elusive), Gippsland, southeastern Australia. PANGAEA dataset by Fletcher and Romano documenting the core site, collection date and age range.

7. Australia’s bush fires got worse after British colonization: this is why. Nature news report explaining the pollen and charcoal reconstruction and the loss of Indigenous burning.

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