This 7.30 report looks at the IPCC's warnings that health risks are intensified by climate change. (Jess Davis)
People fleeing torrents raging through their living rooms, others wading neck-deep across rivers that were once roads. Some clung to their roofs, dotted like islands in a sea of murky brown, others rescued by neighbours in dinghies.
Some were trapped by landslides. Some even lost their lives.
This week, we also saw the world's most comprehensive analysis of what climate change was doing to us. How it's going to get worse, and what we can do to prepare.
Climate change warnings |
| The IPCC says climate change is now a threat to human wellbeing, warning the window we have to act is "rapidly closing". Read more |
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described it as "an atlas of human suffering" and laid the blame squarely at world leaders, calling it "a damning indictment of failed climate leadership".
The response from world leaders was mixed — ranging from urgent concern to deflection and complete silence.
What did the report say about how climate change will affect humans? The 2,600-page report's findings are about as bad as you could imagine.
Climate change is already upending the lives of billions of people around the world and will definitely get worse over the coming years and decades.
Continuing warming — and worsening impacts — are inevitable, with some of those impacts beyond our ability to adapt.
For example, the increasing heat will kill hundreds more people in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, no matter what. But it will kill hundreds more again, if we don't act quickly to cut emissions.
The projections about future flooding are incredibly worrying. The report says with sea level rise of just 0.5m — which we will likely see this century, and maybe as soon as 2050 — what is currently considered a "one-in-100-year flood event" could happen "several times a year".
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| The report also notes flash flooding is going to become more common as downpours become more intense. (Supplied: Sue Higginson) |
Mapping tools can easily reveal how rising seas will inundate coastal areas. Coastal Risk Australia is one such tool.
It shows that sea level rise by 2100 — if we don't move to quickly cut emissions — huge parts of Cairns will be inundated.
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| By 2100, sea levels may rise by 0.84m. This map shows what that'd look like in Cairns.(Supplied: Coastal Risk Australia) |
If we cut emissions now, we delay that amount of sea level rise for some time, giving us perhaps decades to prepare.
But in the longer term, we will see sea level rise for centuries, according to report author Mark Howden, head of the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions.
And there are serious worries, he says, that we might already have triggered some tipping points that will make sea level rise much faster.
When it reaches 5 metres, huge parts of all our capital cities will be under water.
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| Longer term, if sea levels rose by 5m, huge parts of most capital cities like Sydney (pictured) would be underwater. (Supplied: Coastal Risk Australia) |
And while we can spend billions to protect small patches of the reef, none of that is going to stop widespread bleaching.
Even if we limit warming to 1.5C, scientists have estimated 90 per cent of the reef could be killed. Beyond that, there would be virtually nothing left.
Some alpine forests and the animals that depend on them are already near the point of no return, and with inevitable ongoing warming may not survive. The report says with immediate cuts to greenhouse gases, we can save more of the alpine ecosystems.
What needs to be done? The report found the window of opportunity to take the required action was rapidly closing but there was still time to avoid the worst ravages of climate change.
Keeping warming at 1.5C wouldn't stop increased disruption, but would, for example, save hundreds of Australians' lives each year from heat-related deaths and allow the economy to grow to 2070 rather than shrink.
Antonio Guterres was clear about what we needed to do to achieve that.
"Science tells us that will require the world to cut emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050," he said.
"But according to current commitments, global emissions are set to increase almost 14 per cent over the current decade."
Youtube Antonio Guterres described the IPCC's latest report as "an atlas of human suffering".
But because even 1.5C of warming will involve huge impacts on society, we also need to start to prepare.
Adaptation is complex and needs to be progressed by all levels of government and society. What it will involve will be different for different locations, different sectors and different communities.
In some places it will involve levees to hold back water, or a "managed retreat" from the coast. In other places it will involve new planning rules about what sorts of buildings can be built.
The report emphasised that those that were the most vulnerable to climate change were also those who were the least able to adapt: the world's poor. So a big part of adapting to climate change is addressing the gap between rich and poor.
What did the Australian government say about the report? The Australian government had very little to say about the report. There were no widely distributed press releases by the Environment Minister, the Emissions Reduction Minister or the Prime Minister.
Minister Bridget McKenzie holds the portfolio for Recovery and Resilience — one that is highly relevant to the IPCC report.
In an interview, she accepted climate change was making events like the floods this week more frequent and intense, and accepted that this was a result of the failure of leaders.
"The IPCC is dead right. There has been a lack of leadership," she said.
Bridget McKenzie said there had been a lack of leadership on climate change, globally.
But she denied that the Morrison government itself had demonstrated any lack of leadership.
When the ABC approached environment minister Sussan Ley's office for a response to the findings of the report, we were given a statement from a "Morrison Government spokesperson" that celebrated Australia's action on climate.
It argued Australia was reducing emissions faster than many comparable countries, spending a record amount on adaptation and had agreed to a net-zero by 2050 target – with a "detailed" plan.
All these points were disputed by experts contacted by the ABC.
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| The report says some ecosystems will degrade, and there’s not much we can do about it.(Supplied: Great Barrier Reef Legacy, File photo) |
"This government's failings on this critical issue will go down as the defining policy and leadership failure of the past decade."Australia has the highest emissions per capita and per unit of GDP among wealthy developed nations.
"The Morrison government announced a net zero by 2050 target but this isn't backed up by any credible policies. The Morrison government's own modelling shows it won't even come close to reaching this far away, vague goal."
What about the Opposition and other leaders? Labor was more vocal about the report. Its spokesperson on climate and energy, Chris Bowen, described the report as a "stark warning which is particularly relevant to Australians," and said a strong response to climate change could boost our economy.
He said the events showed the stronger 2030 emissions reduction targets promised by Labor — 43 per cent compared to the government's 26 per cent — and Labor's Powering Australia plan, which includes ambitious plans for renewable energy, improved energy transmission and electric vehicles, were desperately needed.
The Greens put out a very detailed press release on the report and sought media coverage.
"This report leaves no room for argument. If we want to stop dangerous climate change, we need to keep coal and gas in the ground," Greens leader Adam Bandt said.
"Delay is the new denial. We can't wait until 2050, and anything less than a rapid phase-out of coal and gas means giving up on the 1.5 degrees goal in the Paris Agreement."
Some global leaders were on the front-foot talking about the report.
John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, said the report "paints a dire picture of the impacts already occurring because of a warmer world and the terrible risks to our planet if we continue to ignore science".
And former leaders of small island nations were exasperated. Anote Tong, former president of Kiribati, said: "The IPCC report confirms what people in Kiribati already knew: sea levels are rising fast and growing climate change impacts such as flooding and higher king tides are endangering our very ability to continue living on our ancestral homelands."
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| Large parts of island nation Kiribati will become inhabitable with rising sea levels.(Supplied: Your Brother, Your Sister/Darren James) |
"We have so much to lose as a nation if we don't start taking climate change seriously, and so much to gain if we do, as one of the sunniest and windiest countries on Earth," he said.
"Amongst wealthy, developed nations, we need to be a global leader on climate change, not its biggest laggard."
The IPCC report itself makes a similar point in no less urgent language.
"Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all," it said.
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