Chapter 2Impact of climate change and more frequent and severe natural disasters
2.1Throughout this inquiry, evidence to the committee highlighted that climate change is contributing to the increasing severity and frequency of natural disasters in Australia.
2.2This chapter will consider the rise of natural disasters and extreme weather events in Australia, which are being exacerbated by climate change, and the impact of these disasters on communities all over the country.This includes the impact on individuals, including their physical and mental health, as well as local communities, critical infrastructure and housing.
Rise of natural disasters and extreme weather events
2.3Mr Andrew Minack, First Assistant Coordinator-General, Policy and Governance, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told the committee that:
It is accepted science that the frequency, intensity and complexity of storms, floods, fires, tropical cyclones and heatwaves are accelerating due to climate change and threatening the wellbeing and security of communities across our nation. National scale crises are becoming annual occurrences.[1]
2.4The State of the Climate Report 2024 (State of the Climate Report), co-developed by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology (the Bureau), warns of continued extreme changes in weather and climate in Australia, including extreme heat, heavy rainfall, coastal inundation, fire and drought, occurring at an increased pace.[2] The authors observed that:
… changes in the weather and climate are happening at an increasing pace; the past decade has seen record-breaking extremes contributing to natural disasters that are exacerbated by anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change, including ‘compound events’, where multiple hazards and/or drivers occur together or in a close sequence, which intensifies their impacts.[3]
2.5The State of the Climate Report further stated that Australia’s climate has warmed by an average of 1.51 ± 0.23 °C since national records began in 1910.[4]
2.6Looking ahead, the State of the Climate Report projects that in the coming decades, Australia will experience ongoing changes to its weather and climate, including:
rising air temperatures, more heat extremes and fewer cold extremes;
continued decrease, on average, in cool season rainfall across many regions of southern and eastern Australia, which will likely lead to longer droughts, but with ongoing climate variability that will give rise to short-duration heavy-rainfall events;
continued increase in the number of dangerous fire weather days and a longer fire season for southern and eastern Australia;
further sea level rise and continued warming and acidification of the oceans around Australia;
increased and longer-lasting marine heatwaves that will affect marine environments, such as kelp forests;
frequent and severe bleaching events in coral reefs around Australia, including the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef; and
fewer tropical cyclones, but with high intensity, with large variations from year to year.[5]
2.7The Australian National University’s Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions (the Institute) submitted that ’climate change is driving more intense and frequent extreme weather events’, particularly impacting Australians living in areas exposed to riverine flooding, sea level rise, coastal erosion, cyclones, bushfires and extreme heat.[6]
2.8The Institute highlighted the complexity and compounding nature of climate risk in Australia, noting that ‘multiple climate hazards will occur simultaneously, and multiple climatic and non-climatic risks will interact.’[7]
2.9Research from the Parliamentary Library indicates that while Australia has always experienced natural disasters, recent extreme weather events are cause for concern due to their severity, frequency and cost to the nation.[8]
2.10For example, in 2019-20, in the hottest and driest year on record (at the time), Australia experienced the unprecedented Black Summer Bushfires where:
33 individuals died;
over 3,000 homes were destroyed;
over 24 million hectares were burned; and
the overall cost to the Australian economy was estimated at $10 billion.[9]
2.11In 2022, the people of the Northern Rivers region experienced the costliest climate driven disaster in Australia's history. Large areas of coastal and North‑East New South Wales and South-East Queensland experienced record rainfall, leading to flash flooding and thousands of Australians in need of rescue.[10]Tragically, more than 20 people died during these flooding events, and thousands of homes and critical infrastructure were destroyed or severely damaged after being inundated. The Insurance Council of Australia estimated total damages from the floods to be $3.5 billion in insured losses.[11]
2.12The Climate Council’s 2022 report, Uninsurable Nation: Australia’s most climate‑vulnerable places, identifies the ten most at risk federal electorates to climate extremes by 2030.[12]As shown in Figure 2.1 below, these electorates span across New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia, and encompass numerous hazards, including riverine and surface water flooding, bushfire, coastal inundation and extreme wind. The Climate Council further identified that riverine flooding poses the most significant risk to properties, finding that of the properties classified as ‘high risk’ by 2030, 80 per cent of that risk is due to riverine flooding.[13]
Figure 2.1Top 10 most at-risk federal electorates to climate extremes by 2030
Source: Climate Council, Uninsurable Nation: Australia's most climate-vulnerable places, May 2022.
2.13As at November 2024, 30 disasters had been declared since the beginning of 2024.[14] These include the following disasters:
Clarence Valley bushfire (NSW)
Tropical Cyclone Kirrily and associated rainfall and flooding (QLD)
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Lincoln and associated flooding (WA)
Severe storm event on the east coast of Tasmania (TAS)
Tropical low 09U Cyclone Megan (NT)
Tropical low and associated flooding in East Pilbara (WA)
Western Queensland rainfall and flooding (QLD)
Yarra Ranges floods (VIC)
NSW east coast flooding (NSW)
Bunbury storm and tornado (WA)
North-east Victorian earthquake (VIC).[15]
2.14Noting the growing number of severe climate-driven disasters, Professor Paula Jarzabkowski emphasised the importance of doing ‘all we can’ to address the climate crisis in terms of ‘preventing further warming and further input into extreme weather.’ However, she warned that:
…even if we were to do that instantly, some of what we have done is already there, because we can't reverse what we have done at any speed. We also, as I pointed out, have these legacy assets and the way that we have built, which exacerbate things like flash flooding, urban flooding and so forth. I believe that we definitely need to try and stop the climate crisis, but that in itself won't be sufficient to change the problem that we're facing. We then still would need to do adaptation to what we already have.
Impact of increasingly severe and frequent natural disasters
2.15The Actuaries Institute told the committee that:
Increasing extreme weather events are already causing severe hardship and disruption to our communities. There will always be some uncertainty about how risks will manifest in specific areas or how they might compound in the future. However, it is clear that the overall impact of climate change is projected to become more severe.
2.16Noting the rise in the severity and frequency of natural disasters due to climate change, the committee considered the human and community impacts in disaster affected regions.Many submitters and witnesses described to the committee the personal impact such disasters have had on their lives. People and communities have suffered trauma, long-term health problems, financial distress and challenges with employment and securing safe housing. Entire committees have faced serious challenges with disasters, impacting local businesses and infrastructure
2.17Mr Paul Hoye, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Douglas Shire Council, told the committee that following Tropical Cyclone Jasper, which caused ‘severe destruction to homes, businesses, properties and vehicles’:
Residents have suffered tremendous trauma from the disaster, losing homes, pets and livestock. The stories of survival are quite heart-wrenching. Council infrastructure has been severely damaged from loss of roads and bridges and damage and loss of water supply infrastructure. Communities were isolated for weeks and in some cases months. Towns including Port Douglas were without water on numerous occasions, sometimes for three or four days. Significant damage and access issues have affected tourism locations and the shire has suffered reputational damage. The ongoing impacts of long-term displacement of people and families, uninhabitable homes and loss of income and livelihoods continue to be the focus of our recovery efforts, and this will continue for many years.[18]
Impact on physical and mental health
2.18The committee heard that natural disasters and extreme weather events can have severe and continuing impacts on physical and mental health, as described by Mr Hoye:
We know we can fix our roads and our water infrastructure, but repairing the social trauma and mental health impact is a much longer journey.[19]
2.19This sentiment was echoed by many other witnesses who shared their personal stories with the committee, while other submitters divulged that they have developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following flooding events.[20] As Ms Jan Praetzi explained, ‘the impact of a disaster stays with you.’ Describing events following the 2022 Northern Rivers floods, she said:
I also suffer from PTSD when it rains now. I'm very fearful. If it rains heavily I'm sort of on full alert as a result of that flood’.[21]
2.20Ms Madeleine Serle, speaking about her experience living through the Maribyrnong floods in Victoria, told the committee:
… the Maribyrnong floods—goodness knows how many cubic metres of water flowed through my house. I still have that visceral feeling. I can bring it up in myself right now. A stinking, stinking mud—I call it 'zombie mud' because you put any moisture near it and it's instantly back together again.
The grief I have felt, and the grief I share—I'm almost a trustee of grief in my role in MCRA—is a way of facing up to the very personal fear, the existential fear, of climate change in my own home and in my community's own homes.[22]
2.21Mr Steve Krieg, Mayor of Lismore City Council, expressed that ‘as a local government, it is a massive challenge just to maintain the mental health of our population. It is such a deep wound that has been opened up in 2022.’[23]
2.22The Northern Rivers based Community Disaster Action Group (CDAG) submitted:
The mental health toll on the community has been immense. Support services are overwhelmed, dealing with widespread trauma, anxiety, and depression stemming from both the initial disaster and the prolonged, stressful recovery process.
This is not just a crisis of individual households, but a fundamental threat to the sustainability, viability and resilience of entire communities across the Northern Rivers and potentially, in the future, across Australia.[24]
2.23The CHOICE Weathering the Storm: Insurance in a changing climate report (2023) gave insights into the lives of families who had been affected by natural disaster:
“We live with PTSD - if we smell smoke we’re on the defensive. The kids with what they have been through at that age, all have anxiety.”
“My daughter has anxiety, every time it rains, [she asks] ‘is it going to flood?’, every time she packs her things to go to her other parent’s she has an outburst of emotion about what to bring, [she is] very hard on herself. I need a sense of place and safety — I don’t necessarily feel that way."
“My tolerance has gone after 3 floods, so has my marriage - it exacerbates what’s underlying [including my] kids’ mental health — we needed to move to give them stability. I’d never buy in a flood prone area again — when you go through it, it’s traumatic. It takes a mental toll.”[25]
2.24The Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience and Safer Communities found that the residents of Brisbane whose homes were directly affected by the 2010—11 Queensland floods were:
5.3 times more likely to report poorer health than those not affected by the floods;
2.3 times more likely to report respiratory issues;
1.9 times more likely to report psychological distress;
2.3 times more likely to report poor sleep quality; and
2.3 times more likely to have probable post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
2.25These statistics are extremely concerning, not only in relation to the serious health impacts they describe, but also in relation to the flow on effects that they will undoubtably have on local health systems and overall community wellbeing.
2.26It should also be noted that experiences with insurance companies often added to the trauma faced. In fact, some witnesses described their experience with insurance companies as more traumatic than the disaster itself. Ms Noelle Maxwell described the PTSD that she now suffers, after dealing with the issue of insurance following the Northern Rivers floods, advising:
I'd like to speak to the PTSD that I now suffer as a result of my insurance experience, one that I didn't even know I had until last week when I received a letter in the post cancelling my policy because one of my auto payments didn't go through. I had corrected this and paid, but it didn't register so they cancelled my policy. That required me to phone them, something that I had stopped doing after the first year as I just couldn't stomach it. When I made the call, I was unable to think clearly or to respond to the word prompts. I actually became physically ill listening to the hold music. I burst into tears when they answered the phone and I couldn't talk for a while. My friend said I was hyperventilating, and I thought my heart was racing and I felt dizzy. Later, I remembered that I'd twice been hospitalised for a hypertensive crisis after my previous calls to my insurance company.[26]
Impact on housing and the displacement of people
2.27Not only can natural disasters severely damage properties and the surrounding infrastructure, but the committee heard that the repairing and rebuilding stage also poses as a significant challenge, given the costs, materials and human labour required. In some communities, these costs have been prohibitive with communities going without basic school, health and road infrastructure for long periods of time.
2.28The Too Close to Home: How do we keep communities safe from escalating climate impacts report by the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action and the Climate Council found that Australians have been forced to move almost a quarter of a million times in recent years due to climate-related disasters, with certain communities becoming ‘calamity hotspots’.[27] They reported that between 2008–2009 to 2022–2023 there were 240,828 displacements—or forced movements—across Australia due to extreme weather events. Two thirds of these occurred between 2018–2019 to 2022–2023.[28] These include:
of 95,239 displacements as a result of fires, 68 per cent of these were due to the unprecedented Black Summer bushfires.
of 85,690 displacements due to flooding, 68 per cent were due to the 2020-22 flooding disasters in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
of the 59,826 displacements due to storms, 79 per cent are attributed to tropical cyclones Debbie (2017), Yasi (2011) and Oswald (2013).[29]
2.29Chels Hood Withey, President of the Community Disaster Action Group (CDAG), stressed that many people are simply leaving the Northern Rivers region as a consequence of the 2022 floods as they can no longer afford to insure their homes, and renting or buying a home has become much more expensive.[30]Further, the CDAG submitted:
Entire streets in towns remain empty, with residents unable to return due to inadequate insurance payouts or delays or ineligibility for government assistance. Community centres, schools, and local businesses- the backbone of the social fabric- are still struggling to rebuild.[31]
2.30The committee also heard that tenants living in disaster damaged properties are often asked to move out while essential repairs are undertaken, but then the property is placed back on the rental market at a much higher price, due to the current housing crisis.[32]
Impact on local businesses and industries
2.31Evidence to the committee indicated that the economic impact of disasters on local businesses and industries can be catastrophic.
2.32The Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC), an independent statutory authority of the Government of Western Australia, submitted that:
Small businesses are the most likely to be severely affected by disaster. Recovery can be hampered by financial loss (as reported by 65 per cent of small businesses with 1–5 employees), property damage and disrupted utilities (especially in regional areas).
In tourism reliant towns that have suffered from a natural disaster, small businesses may also suffer from reduced income related to the reputational damage to the region, with significant effort required to re-attract visitors to the area.[33]
2.33The SBDC further advised that recovery from a disaster can be hampered by unexpected and high costs, noting that the sooner impacted businesses re-open, the sooner employment and supply of goods can occur in the area.[34] Theyreferred to the Broome Chamber of Commerce and Industry which indicated that an increase in expenses, including insurance, service as drivers for businesses closing or people moving away from the area.[35]
2.34The impact of increasing natural disasters on the agricultural and farming industry has also been significant.
2.35Submissions from the Queensland Farmers Federation and Grain Producers SA highlighted the challenges faced by their industries, particularly in disaster prone regions.
2.36The Queensland Farmers Federation, which represents primary producers across the cotton, sugarcane, horticulture, dairy, nursery and garden, poultry, eggs, pork, and intensive animal industries, described the highly variable climatic conditions that Queensland farmers are subject to, and which can undermine production.[36]
2.37Grain Producers SA, the peak body representing grain farming businesses in South Australia, drew the committee’s attention to several climate disasters that devastated parts of South Australia impacting their members. This included the Pinery bushfire in the lower-Mid-North wheat belt of South Australia, which spread quickly due to high winds and open wheat fields. In relation to this disaster alone, Grain Producers SA explained that:
Two lives were lost, along with thousands of livestock, copious amounts of broadacre property burnt and about 91 homes destroyed, with many more damaged. The predictions are that significant fire and weather events like this will occur more frequently in the future due to the changing climate and yet, farmers are unable to prepare for this by protecting their business with insurance because previous disasters have seen premiums rise to levels that average farmers can't access.[37]