Climate change is influencing extreme weather, globally and locally. Devastating droughts and floods; severe heatwaves; earlier, hotter and more dangerous bushfire seasons… the list goes on.
And this summer is shaping up to be one of Australia’s angriest yet, with cities and towns across the country smashing countless temperature records during December and January. News just in confirms January 2019 as our hottest month on record, directly after our hottest December on record.
Overall, 2018 was the world’s fourth hottest year on record for surface temperature (Australia’s third hottest (2)), and the hottest on record for the world’s oceans. It was a year in which several Australian states endured relentless drought, while others copped a drenching, and unprecedented bushfires.
And its people on the frontline of climate change, like Jim McDonald, who are being left exposed to its ever more damaging effects.
Jim, a fourth-generation farmer and Governor Member of Farmers for Climate Action, wants the Federal Government to start taking climate action seriously.
He’s joining the rallying call for a credible climate policy that cuts to the core of what’s exacerbating this increasingly weird, wild weather: climate change, driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas. Hear what Jim has to say.
Video from The Climate Council