Australia's government has taken its deepest look ever at the impacts of climate risk, and the prime minister calls the results “a wake-up call.”
Tropical storms, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires are all expected to increase in number and in severity across Australia over the next 25 years.
That's according to Australia's National Climate Risk Assessment, a 72-page report which also says the country is “likely to experience more intense and extreme climate hazards, and in some cases in areas where people and places haven't experienced these hazards before.”
The document goes through three scenarios: from rises of between 1.5 degrees Celsius to more than 3 degrees Celsius by 2050.
That's a range from nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit to nearly 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
Under the worst case, heat-related deaths in Australiaʻs largest city of Sydney would rise by more than 400%.
The government has also released a climate adaptation plan, including roughly $6 billion to mitigate the impacts of floods and fires.
The head of the nonprofit Climate Council called the reportʻs findings “terrifying,” and urged the government to commit to higher emission cuts when it announces its new targets for 2035 later this week.
