{"id":86248,"date":"2024-04-03T15:46:12","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T04:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=86248"},"modified":"2024-04-04T12:45:55","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T01:45:55","slug":"queenslands-alarming-climate-trend-must-not-set-a-new-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/queenslands-alarming-climate-trend-must-not-set-a-new-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Queensland\u2019s alarming climate trend must not set a \u2018new normal\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

For a glimpse into Australia\u2019s future in a rapidly changing climate, have a look at Queensland, our most hazard-prone state.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Recent government data shows that in the past three years, 60 of the state\u2019s 77 local government areas (LGAs) have suffered three or more major climate-related disasters. In the same period, almost one-third of them have endured <\/span>five or more<\/span><\/i> disasters, a massive increase from a decade ago (chart below).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It would be comforting to be able to attribute this increase solely to \u2018natural\u2019 extreme El Ni\u00f1o or La Ni\u00f1a weather patterns, but climate change is likely <\/span>amplifying<\/span><\/a> both phenomena and increasing their frequency.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alarm bells should be sounding at the prospect of this trend continuing and spreading across all of Australia. But <\/span>research has shown<\/span><\/a> there can be a \u2018boiling frog\u2019 effect on perceptions of climate impacts. In Australia, the impacts are manifested in events with which we are historically familiar\u2014droughts, floods and fires.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The public\u2019s reference point for \u2018normal conditions\u2019 is based on the weather experienced between two and eight years ago. And they are less likely to regard climate events as extreme if they have been previously exposed to them either directly or through media reports.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Climate change may be becoming the \u2018new normal\u2019 in all the wrong ways.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

This means that all our existing emergency management planning and investments must be reality-checked against this rapidly emerging environment. We need to identify which of our current assumptions and programs will continue to be fit-for-purpose and identify innovative responses that match the scale of the change that is already underway and accelerating.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We currently spend far more on responding to, and recovering from, disasters, than on reducing future disaster and climate risk. We need to invest much more in the latter.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That begins with having a clear-eyed view of the challenge before us. Australia\u2019s emergency response and disaster management processes and procedures are based on our historical experience of hazards and disasters.\u00a0But history is no longer reliable. Like never before, the fire \u2018season\u2019 is expanding rapidly, cyclones are becoming more powerful and destructive and may be tracking further south, intense rainfall is shattering historical records and \u2018weather whiplash\u2019\u2014wild swings between many extremes\u2014is accelerating the danger and undermining community resilience.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This should not be surprising. The climate is now the warmest it has been in at least the last 100,000 years. To put that figure into context, the Great Pyramids were constructed about 4,000 years ago and Neanderthals died out about 40,000 years ago. We are clearly entering uncharted waters.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2011 the <\/span>National Strategy for Disaster Resilience<\/span><\/i> report stated that \u2018it is uncommon for a disaster to be so large that it is beyond the capacity of a state or territory government to deal with it effectively\u2019. This statement is rapidly becoming outdated. The fundamental reference point for our emergency planning must now become the extent to which we are reducing the risks of intensifying, increasingly national-scale disasters with rapidly diminishing time for communities to recover between events.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This will require addressing a profoundly separate set of strategic challenges, beginning immediately:\u00a0 How do we provide relief to exhausted emergency services personnel and volunteer emergency responders in an environment of, intensifying, back-to-back disasters? Will we be able to maintain the current level of response without a massive increase in personnel? How will governments meet the growing need for mental health support in communities buffeted by multiple, consecutive disasters? Given the existing shortage of skilled trades people, where will we find the tradies to rebuild homes and other infrastructure in this emerging era of disasters?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s largest insurer, IAG, estimated in 2016 that 28% of our GDP and 25% of Australians are in areas with high to extreme risk of flood and about 11% of GDP and 10% of people are in places with high and extreme risk of bushfire.\u202f These numbers are certainly much larger today, due to population growth and development, and because climate change is expanding the areas at risk.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Major insurers have recently begun increasing the costs of policies and withdrawing from markets where climate change is accelerating the risk of extreme hazards. Given the scale of our economic exposure suggested by IAG, if insurance becomes unavailable or unaffordable, the government will need to step in at enormous cost.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One response is to avoid building in these hazard zones. In the wake of recent record-setting floods, the federal government is supporting NSW and Queensland\u2019s implementation of the largest home buy-back scheme in Australia\u2019s history, to encourage owners to re-locate homes away from extreme flood risk. But these innovative and useful measures are extremely expensive, and it is unlikely that we can afford to regularly repeat and expand them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Australia has the potential to become one of the world\u2019s most climate and disaster resilient countries in the world. We cannot avoid our high exposure to existing climate hazards, but we can reduce our vulnerability by making better choices about where we live, how we build our infrastructure, which technologies we invest in, by strengthening social capital in our communities and\u2014fundamentally\u2014by accelerating our transition from fossil fuels to renewables and advocating for other countries to do the same. Queensland\u2019s experience with disasters suggest we need to move in these directions much faster than we realise.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a glimpse into Australia\u2019s future in a rapidly changing climate, have a look at Queensland, our most hazard-prone state.\u00a0\u00a0 Recent government data shows that in the past three years, 60 of the state\u2019s 77 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":832,"featured_media":86250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[283,306],"class_list":["post-86248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-climate-change","tag-disaster-relief","dinkus-north-of-26-south"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nQueensland\u2019s alarming climate trend must not set a \u2018new normal\u2019 | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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