The world has warmed about 1 degree since around 1900,but it’s been worse in Australia,where the average temperature has climbed 1.4 degrees,on average,with nine out of the 10 warmest years on record occurring since 2005.
Like 195 other countries,Australia has signed onto the Paris climate agreement,a global treaty for countries to act consistently with the international action required to keep global temperature rise as close to 1.5 degrees as possible.
But climate scientists have calculated that even if all nations deliver in full on these goals,the average global temperature will rise more than 2 degrees,and greater action is needed to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.
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Respected climate scientist Dr Bill Hare,who created the Climate Action Tracker website,released a report on Friday that analysed how much the earth would warm if all countries adopted the emissions reduction targets of political parties contesting the federal election. Each party based their emissions reduction targets on 2005 levels.
Hare,an adjunct professor at Murdoch University,said under the level of global warming consistent with the Coalition’s plan,“intense heat events that have recently occurred once in a decade could happen almost every year,and highest maximum temperatures are likely to be 3 degrees warmer than in recent times.”