news

Heads of climate-vulnerable nations gathered on the sidelines of a United Nations climate summit to call for new policies and agreements to manage the millions of people who are being forced from their homes by extreme weather. Click here to read more.

Climate change will have major ramifications for migration at every level: domestic, regional, and international. While most migration affected by climate change will be internal, the international system is unprepared and inadequate for the needs that will arise. This brief reviews issues faced in the governance of climate-affected migration at the internal, regional, and international...

Every day, more children discover they are living in a climate crisis. This makes many children feel sad, anxious, angry, powerless, confused and frightened about what the future holds. The climate change burden facing young people is inherently unfair. But they have the potential to be the most powerful generation when it comes to creating...

The European Environmental Agency (EEA) warned on Monday that Europe could suffer "catastrophic" consequences of  climate change if it fails to take urgent action. In its first Europe-wide analysis of climate-related risks, the EEA listed 36 threats related to climate in Europe, 21 of which demand immediate action, while eight were described as "particularly urgent." The dangers include fires,...

As Earth’s climate warms, incidences of extreme heat and humidity are rising, with significant consequences for human health. Climate scientists are tracking a key measure of heat stress that can warn us of harmful conditions. Click here to read more.

The Copernicus Interactive Climate Atlas, launched by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S*) on 20 February, is set to be an important new resource for policymakers looking to formulate effective climate policy and for other users needing to visualise and analyse climate change information. This new tool from C3S, which builds on the Interactive Atlas of...

The Actuaries Institute has launched a climate index, an objective measure of extreme weather conditions and changes to sea levels, to help policymakers and Australia’s businesses assess how the frequency of weather extremes is changing over time. To read more click here.

Climate Action Network Australia members are nonprofit organisations who collaborate to advocate for better climate solutions, to protect people from climate change, to safeguard our natural environment and to build a fairer and healthier Australia for everyone. Click here to read more.

World leaders aren't taking the climate threat seriously. Or, they might say they are taking it seriously—but as author and scholar of democracy Dana R. Fisher notes, it’s nowhere near enough. To read more click here.

Information from the United States Environmental Protection Agency click here.

A new index measures the social vulnerability of communities in the face of climate change in Australia – and finds inequalities across the country. It feels like Australia is in a never-ending cycle of climate-related disasters. In December 2023 alone we saw flooding inundate Northern Queensland, bushfires blaze through north-west New South Wales, and forecasts...

We don’t yet fully understand what global climate tipping points mean for Australia. But we know enough to conclude the impacts of passing one or more tipping points must now be considered. To read more click here.

An on-line tool to understand the climate in your location. Click here for more.

Climate change is affecting prospects for trade and economic development around the world. Extreme weather can disrupt supply chains, damage the transport infrastructure necessary for trade in goods, and restrict people’s ability to travel. Changing climatic conditions and the policies introduced to address them are shifting the patterns of comparative advantage, creating risks for countries...

The impact of the Covid pandemic on the global supply chain has been widely reported. But extreme weather, from floods to wildfires, is increasingly hammering ports, highways, and factories worldwide, and experts warn these climate-induced disruptions will only get worse. To read more click here.

Journal Article The costs of climate change are often estimated in monetary terms, but this raises ethical issues. Here we express them in terms of numbers of people left outside the ‘human climate niche’—defined as the historically highly conserved distribution of relative human population density with respect to mean annual temperature. We show that climate...

Disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current could freeze Europe, scorch the tropics and increase sea level rise in the North Atlantic. The tipping point may be closer than predicted in the IPCC’s latest assessment. To read more click here.

This Explainer aims to promote a deeper understanding of key concepts, numbers, and terminology defining the interrelationship between the climate crisis and movement of people within and across borders—to inform greater understanding, and offer principles to guide solutions. It is not meant to be a definitive guide to the ever-expanding body of data, research, or...

Book by Jake Bittle Shortlisted for the 2024 Carnegie Medal for Excellence “The Great Displacement is closely observed, compassionate, and far-sighted.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Under a White Sky The untold story of climate migration in the United States—the personal stories of those experiencing displacement, the portraits of communities being torn apart by...

As many residents will be proud to tell you, the thousand-odd islands that make up the Florida Keys are one of a kind: there is no other place in the world that boasts the same combination of geological, ecological, and sociological characteristics. The islands have a special, addictive quality about it, an air of freedom...

Over the past few decades, the migration of people across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Member States and other regions has expanded – aided by progress in transportation, communication, social networking, and technology.   Environmental factors including climate change is one many complex drivers of migration and displacement in the Southeast Asian region. The...

Floods, fires, drought and disasters are already displacing more people globally than conflict. The climate emergency is destroying crops, homes and infrastructure and as the world heats over the coming decades whole cities may become unliveable, forcing populations to move in their tens of millions. How can we manage this unprecedented human movement to achieve...

We don’t yet fully understand what global climate tipping points mean for Australia. But we know enough to conclude the impacts of passing one or more tipping points must now be considered. To read more from the CSIRO click here.

The record-breaking trend seen for much of 2023 has continued in 2024, with January being the hottest January on record. It is the eighth month in a row that is the warmest on record for the respective time of the year. Sea surface temperatures have been record high for ten consecutive months. To read more...

Existing climate mitigation scenarios assume future rates of economic growth that are significantly higher than what has been experienced in the recent past. This article explores how assuming lower rates of growth, in line with the hypothesis of secular stagnation, changes the range of mitigation possibilities. They compare scenarios with moderate and strong policy ambition...

We might be coming to the end of summer, but we are certainly still having long, hot, dry days. ABC reporter Selina Ross reported we were in for a scorching summer, and provided tips to prepare for bushfire season, which may still need to be heeded. To read more click here.

Climate Crisis: Ideas for Investigative Journalists This Global Investigative Journalism Network resource page aims to encourage more investigative reporting about the climate crisis. In Part 1, they begin with articles that provide concrete suggestions for investigative projects. In Part 2, they have collected challenging commentaries on how the media has handled climate change and what...

Click here to see the CSIRO data showing the CO2 emissions at Cape Grim in December 2023

Click here for facts on heatwaves - the health-related or economic risks, including increased human mortality, drought and water quality, wildfire and smoke, power shortages and agricultural losses.

The calls for climate reparations are rapidly growing in the scientific literature, among climate movements, and in the policy debate. This article proposes morally based reparations for oil, gas, and coal producers, presents a methodological approach for their implementation, and quantifies reparations for the top twenty-one fossil fuel companies. Click here to read more.

Climate Impact Research articles reports that 01/26/2024 - Beyond 2°C of global warming, the risk of one climate tipping element triggering other tipping processes in the Earth’s climate system strongly increases. This is the result of a new study by an international team of scientists. Click here to read more.

Climate tipping elements are critical, large-scale components of the Earth system, which are characterized by a threshold behaviour. These systems appear to remain stable with increasing global temperature, but starting at a particular global temperature threshold, very small additional disturbances can 'tip' them into a qualitatively new state. If you imagine a valuable vase that...

You’ve almost certainly read about the backup of ships waiting to transit the Panama Canal, which carries 6 percent of all commercial ships worldwide. While the worry among faraway readers may be concerns about supply chain disruptions that could lead to holiday shopping shortages, the problem in Panama is more immediate. The proximate cause of the backup...

Documents shed light on the earliest-known instance of climate science funded by the fossil fuel industry, adding to growing understanding of Big Oil’s knowledge of climate change. Read more here

The hottest year in recorded history casts doubts on humanity’s ability to deal with a climate crisis of its own making, senior scientists have said.  As historically high temperatures continued to be registered in many parts of the world in late December, the former Nasa scientist James Hansen told the Guardian that 2023 would be...