The Climate Council has released a new report linking climate change with worsening droughts, including the current one, extreme weather events such as bushfires and floods, and identifying water security as a source of grave concern.
The report, Deluge and Drought: Australia’s Water Security in a Changing Climate, stated that if the effects of climate change were left unchecked the results for the agriculture sector and beyond will be devastating.
Less water is likely to be available for agriculture, urban water supplies, and ecosystems across southern Australia Less water is likely to flow into dams in southern Australia as a result of human-driven climate change Australia’s long-term water security is dependent on action, especially the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels According to the report, the Murray-Darling Basin — known as "Australia’s food bowl" —has seen a 41 per cent reduction in "streamflows" since the mid-1990s, while water systems in Western Australia’s southwest have declined by about 50 per cent.
These grim figures were all related, the publicly-funded council found, to rainfall patterns thrown badly out of whack by climate change.
The authors cited the Australian Capital Territory "megafires" of 2003 (during which the world’s first-known "fire tornado" was observed) as an example of the disastrous one-two punch of climate change.
Also cited in the report was the 1997–2009 Millennium Drought, which the report stated "seriously affected Australia’s agricultural sector, putting a dent in our GDP and eroding the health and wellbeing of humans and natural ecosystems alike".
"The combination of drying, extreme heat and increasingly intense bushfires has damaged or destroyed several of our most valued ecosystems, including Tasmania’s World Heritage forests and alpine areas," the report said.
The report identified climate change as a "threat multiplier", with myriad knock-on effects stemming from water insecurity that extended beyond the environmental and economic all the way to social disharmony, poverty, and the prospect of future waves of "climate refugees".
In general, the report stated: "wet areas of the world are becoming wetter and dry areas drier as the climate continues to change".
An average global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius could result in an increase in extreme rain events across Australia by 11 to 30 per cent.