Politicians across both major parties have spoken about the Queensland floods and the ‘resilience’ of Queenslanders, particularly north Queenslanders in dealing with these climate disasters. Questions have focused on ‘what is being done to help residents’ and ‘mitigation’ and insurance has also been raised (which makes sense seeing how difficult it is becoming to insure against these climate disasters).

But political leaders are not being asked the pressing questions – which is why are they continuing to support fossil fuels when we know the impact they are having on the climate, and why aren’t they doing everything in their power to ensure these climate disasters don’t get any worse (which is the goal by the way – everything you are seeing across the world – that is the new benchmark. It won’t get ‘better’ than that. But if we act, we can stop it from getting worse).

ClimaMeter have looked at the Queensland floods and concluded they were “primarily driven by human-driven climate change, which intensified the meteorological conditions that led to the event”.

You can read the report, here but the main points from the report which led to their conclusions were:

  • Meteorological conditions similar to that causing floods in Queensland are up to 17 mm/day (up to 20%) wetter over the coast of Queensland. Additionally, conditions are up to 5 km/h (up to 20%) windier offshore Queensland and up to 1.5 ºC warmer in the present compared to the past. 
  • This event was associated with exceptional meteorological conditions.
  • We ascribe the heavier precipitation associated with Queensland floods to human driven climate change and natural climate variability likely played a minor role.

But somehow, it never seems to be the ‘time’ to talk about it, does it?