Australia and Climate change

Heatwaves, heavy rainfalls that cause massive floods and wildfires, (called bushfires locally), are some of the main features of the climate change impacts on Australia. During heatwaves excess moisture is absorbed into the atmosphere that on occasions influences intense rainfalls and floods. Excess heat also contributes to extremely dry vegetation conditions, that normally set the stage for massive bushfires.

Australia experiences frequent episodes of intense heatwaves. As reported by ABC, Australian Broadcasting corporation, in its headline on January 27, 2026, “Historic heatwave sets all-time records as temperatures exceed 49C” in many areas of Australia. 49C is about 120 Degrees Fahrenheit. It further reports that “temperatures during the past two days have climbed as much as 20 degrees Celsius above average, and on Tuesday included the hottest maximum ever officially recorded in Victoria, and highs above 49C in New South Wales and South Australia.” The article shows some amazement with respect to the duration of the heatwaves, it says “he longevity of the heatwave is also notable, on track for seven to eight consecutive days above 40C across a large swathe of the inland, the longest stretch since the 1930s in parts of NSW,” (the state of New South Wales).

Reuters publication on march 15, 2025 contends that “Climate change is causing extreme heat and fire weather to become more common in Australia, a bushfire-prone country of around 27 million, the country’s science agency said last year.” The heatwaves in March was concentrated in the south eastern state of New South Wales, including its Capital city of Sydney. Reuters claims “on Sunday, the nation’s weather forecaster said temperatures would be up to 12 degrees Celsius (21.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in some areas of the state, with temperatures in Sydney, Australia’s most populous city, set to hit 37C (98.6F).” The excess heat triggered concerns about the possible development of bushfires, to avert the possibility “the state’s Rural Fire Service said on X that a total fire ban was in place for large swaths of the state including Sydney due to the forecast of hot, dry and windy conditions.” Bushfires are discussed below.

Severe heatwaves also hit Australia in 2024. As reported by ABC, on March 11, 2024 with the headline, “Record-breaking autumn heatwave over south-east Australia hints at growing trend.” The heatwave struck early in the year and concentrated in the border states of South Australia and Victoria. Readers who live in the global north might observe that Australia was experiencing ‘autumn heatwave’ in the month of march, which is basically spring time in the northern hemisphere, so its worth mentioning that weather seasons south of the earth’s equator or the southern hemisphere, (where Australia is situated), is opposite to the weather seasons in the northern hemisphere. For example, when its autumn or summer in one hemisphere, the opposite spring or winter exists in the other.

To demonstrate the intensity of the Autumn’s early heatwave, ABC in the march 11 publication says “daytime temperatures across South Australia and Victoria climbed as much as 20 degrees Celsius above average throughout the course of the event — with some places inland reaching the low 40s.” 40 degrees Celsius is 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat continued into the nights as well and this created some degree of alarm, ” it was the night-time minimums’ failure to provide any reprieve which really cemented the severity of the heatwave,” ABC contends, and “An overnight low of 29C in Cleve, South Australia, and 26.2C at Melbourne Airport were both records for the region.” ABC argues that day-night heatwave combination poses additional risks to the health of human beings.

In March, 2025, and for a few days in a row, Cyclone Alfred brought persistent heavy rainfall and severe floods to Australia, particularly to the city of Brisbane, capital of the state of Queensland and other eastern areas of the country. According to guycarp.com, a New York based risk management company, “between march 4 and 10, Brisbane and the gold coast saw a total rainfall of 400 to 600 mm”, (approximate16 to 24 inches). To demonstrate its severity, the article states that “the heavy rainfall received in Brisbane in under 24 hours, is about 2 months worth of average precipitation.” It argues that the consequences were huge floods, electricity outage, relocation of vulnerable citizens and general social and economic disruptions.

As an article by the University of Melbourne, persuit.unimelb.edu.au demonstrates, floods in Australia are not rear, but what was rear about Cyclone Alfred was the intensity of the rainfall and the scope of the floods. The article, among other things, assesses the cost of home repairs due to climate disasters in parts of Australia. It says “the 2021 Central Queensland Floods, the floods caused by Cyclone Seth, [late December 2021 to early January 2022], the Eastern Australia foods that affected Queensland and parts of New South Wales in February and March 2022″ are consider among the worse home-destruction events to occur in Australia. A noteworthy aspect of the Australian climate experience, as discussed in persuit.unimelb.edu.au, is that natural disasters of a certain type generally reoccur in the same geographical area. A climate event of a particular type does not usually divert from its historical pattern, but usually occurs in the same area time and time again. For example, intense rainfall and floods keep reoccurring almost exclusively in the neighboring eastern states of Queensland and New South Wales, while wildfires mostly in the south eastern states of Victoria and New South Wales.. This degree of disaster predictability should be useful to Australia from the standpoint of adaptation policies formulation.

It is stated in persuit.unimelb.edu.au that Australia’s geographical position between the Indian and Pacific oceans creates the extreme weather “patterns” to which the country is susceptible. The article also declares that “the warming of the planet is ‘supercharging’ our climate, increasing the risk of more frequent serious weather-related events that may also become more intense.”

The Heatwaves of January 2026 triggered massive bushfires in the south eastern part of the country, particularly in the states of Victoria and New South Wales. A report by BBC on January 11, states that “one person has died and 300 properties have been destroyed in bushfires that have torn across south-east Australia,” and “the fires have raged in dozens of locations across the country for several days, mostly in the state of Victoria, but also in New South Wales, burning through land almost twice the size of Greater London.” Victoria was mostly affected and the response from local authorities was aggressive but the impact on locals could not have been avoided, reporting at the time BBC said “a state of emergency has been declared in Victoria as thousands of firefighters and more than 70 aircraft battle the blaze. Residents in more than a dozen communities have been advised to leave their homes.”

Australia has experienced a fair amount of massive fires in recent times. According to the the Climate Council of Australia “the most extreme 10% of fire weather days has increased in recent decades across many regions of Australia, especially in southern and eastern Australia,” and it claims that “the most direct link between bushfires and climate change comes from the long-term trend towards a hotter climate. Climate change is now making hot days hotter, and heatwaves longer and more frequent.” The Climate Council lists the ‘Black Saturday bushfire’ in 2009 and the ‘Black Summer bushfires’ in 2019 and 2020 as two of the most intense and destructive bushfires in the country’s history. Concerning the former, it says “Extreme heat conditions preceded the Black Saturday bushfire in 2009  – Australia’s most deadly bushfire. In late January, Victoria experienced one of its most severe heatwaves, with Melbourne exceeding 43°C for three consecutive days; the first time on record. The extreme heat dried out flammable vegetation across the state, setting the stage for catastrophic fire conditions,” and with regard to the latter, “the Tinderbox Drought was severe and pushed rural towns to the brink of running dry. It set the stage for the bone dry conditions that contributed to the Black Summer bushfires of 2019/2020, which burned more than 24 million hectares of land and led to the deaths of 33 people and almost 450 due to smoke inhalation.”

Based on analysis by ember-energy.org “35% of Australia’s electricity was generated from low-carbon sources in 2024, below the global average of 41%. It was the 20th largest country by electricity demand,” and that it intends to increase its renewable energy use in electricity production to 82% by 2030. Coal, a huge greenhouse gas pollutant, still forms a significant part of the country’s electricity production, being more than half of the fossil fuel energies used in the production process. “Australia relies on fossil fuels for 65% of its electricity in 2024, with 46% coming from coal”, the article states and “Australia’s joint share of wind and solar (29%) is almost double the global average (15%).”

According to thedriven.io, published in may 2025, “EV sales over the first four months of 2025 have totaled just 23,911 compared to 32,846 in the same 4 months of 2024”. It claims Tesla accounts for the biggest drop in sales which is consistent with what Tesla is experiencing in other parts of the world. Tesla’s sales decline becomes even more acute when the article claims that it accounted for half the EV sales in Australia in the same period in 2024. Though sales are not vibrant, BYD a Chinese brand has succeeded Tesla as the top selling EV car in Australia, in May 2025 the article states, “EV sales remain weak in April as Tesla plunges and BYD takes the lead.”

A legislation called the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES), has recently been enacted and becomes effective as of July 1, 2025 in Australia. The law will regulate the amount of Carbon emitted by newly manufactured vehicles, and will be revised and make more stringent year by year. Fines will be imposed on manufacturers who find themselves in contravention of the law. There are concerns in the EV sector that such fines would pose additional financial burden on manufacturers who would then have to pass them on to EV purchasers, a development that would have negative consequences in terms of sales.

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