ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 (The Impact of Climate Change in Australia) recognizes that, as has been the case globally, the first two decades of the 21st century have been the warmest period on record in Australia. Heat events have become longer, more frequent, and more intense over much of Australia in recent decades. In Australia, four degrees of warming is predicted to dramatically alter rainfall and temperature patterns and distribution, leading to increased incidence and intensity of extreme weather events like droughts, heatwaves, floods, and storms. These changes will adversely affect Australia’s biodiversity, ocean, and agricultural systems, with potentially severe social and economic impacts, particularly in cities, where infrastructures, service provision, and patterns of settlement could face significant disruption. This chapter reviews four climatic events that have occurred in Australia in recent times, namely the Millennium Drought of 1997–2009; the period of 2010–2011, during which the Queensland and New South Wales coast experienced intense cyclones, storm surges, heavy rainfall, and flooding; the Angry Summer of 2012–2013; and the mega fire that swept across six states in late 2019 and early 2020. It also examines the projected impact of rising temperatures on Australia’s capital cities as well as the impact of climate change on Indigenous people.
