More desalination is coming to Australia’s driest states – but super-salty outflows could trash ecosystems and fisheries
15 May 2024
From around 1996 to 2010, Australia was gripped by the millennium drought and as water shortages bit hard, most capital cities built large seawater desalination plants.
No room for the timid: setting Australia’s 2035 emissions target is a daring tightrope act
Tue 26 Aug 2025
Any week now, Australia will set its 2035 emissions target. It must signal the nation’s strong ambition on climate action, to drive policy and investment. And it must avoid being seen as either unrealistic or too costly.
Australian academics concerned about local research amid US funding cuts
Tue 26 Aug 2025
Scientists in regional Australia warn that major policy and funding changes in the United States will have a significant impact on critical research locally.
Sydney records most rain since weather station opened in 1858
20 Aug 2025
Sydney's wettest August in 27 years has tipped the city's recent climate into uncharted territory.
Forget net zero. We need ‘real zero’ – and these companies prove it’s profitable
15 Aug 2025
OPINION: Three huge global companies – IKEA, Lendlease and Fortescue Mining – are heading towards real zero. If they can do it, so can everyone.
Climate crisis risks to Aus economy and environment ‘intense and scary’, unreleased govt report
14 Aug 2025
Sources say delayed risk assessment includes modelling of effects of climate crisis in ways that have been little discussed in political debate so far.
Australia can hit an 85% emissions cut by 2035 – if government and business seize the moment
13 Aug 2025
Discussions are hotting up over Australia’s 2035 emission reduction target, which the federal government is due to reveal by September this year. It will be a crucial announcement, for several reasons.
Great Barrier Reef suffers biggest annual drop in live coral since 1980s after devastating coral bleaching
11 Aug 2025
Researchers warn reef may reach tipping point where coral cannot recover fast enough between major catastrophic events
What’s in a number? New carbon target sparks new climate warfare
4 Aug 2025
Casual observers of Australia's federal parliament might this week have been startled by a sudden resumption of conflict over climate, but the timing was no accident.
Reintroducing a carbon price the 'most economically efficient tax reform' to repair Australia's budget
1 Aug 2025
Economist Ross Garnaut has warned of "tragic consequences" for productivity and the federal budget, as well as climate change, unless Australia reintroduces a carbon price "as a matter of urgency".
As US climate data-gathering is gutted, Australian forecasting is now at real risk
30 Jul 2025
As damage from climate change intensifies, political change overseas is threatening Australia’s ability to track what’s happening now, and predict what will happen next.
