Climate change making extreme events worse in Australia

Australia faces more frequent and more severe weather events if it fails to make deep and swift cuts to carbon emissions, according to a recent report from the Climate Commission (Steffen et al., 2013), an independent advisory group set up by the Australian Government. The extreme heatwaves, flooding and bush fires that have befallen Australia in recent years have already been intensified by climate change and are set to get even worse in future. Only fast and deep cuts to carbon emissions can start to reverse the trend, conclude the climate scientists, as well as policy and business leaders behind the report.