Climate change is taking center stage in Australia’s political scene, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese isn’t holding back. He’s calling for bold, decisive action to tackle global warming, saying it’s making natural disasters like Cyclone Alfred more intense — and a lot more expensive to recover from.
Speaking from the National Situation Room in Canberra on Friday morning, Albanese stressed the importance of listening to scientists and cutting greenhouse gas emissions before extreme weather gets even worse. “You can’t say this cyclone is only because of climate change,” he explained. “But what we do know is that climate change is definitely messing with our weather patterns.”
The science backs him up. According to the CSIRO, climate change is heating up the oceans, which might lead to fewer cyclones overall — but the ones that do hit? They’re likely to be way more powerful, bringing heavy rains and dangerous storm surges.
Cyclone Alfred is expected to make landfall on Saturday, but its strong winds have already knocked out power for over 80,000 people in New South Wales and Queensland. If flooding hits Queensland, experts say the clean-up bill could run into billions of dollars.
The Albanese government has committed to cutting emissions by 43% by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050. But with a tricky election ahead, they’ve delayed setting any new targets for 2035, partly because of the unpredictable climate policies coming out of the US.
On the other side of the debate, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has promised to scrap the 2030 target, saying it’s too hard to reach and only driving up electricity prices. He’s sticking to the 2050 net-zero goal but plans to get there by investing in nuclear energy.
Albanese, though, isn’t buying it. He challenged the opposition to consider the real cost of not acting on climate change — not just in terms of money, but in human lives and suffering. “Sure, transitioning to clean energy costs money,” he said. “But the economic and human cost of doing nothing? That’s even higher.”
Still, the Albanese government is feeling the heat over rising electricity costs and the slow progress on their renewable energy promises. They’d pledged to cut power bills by $275 during the 2022 campaign, but global fuel prices pushed average household bills up to around $1600 instead.
Meanwhile, the Coalition is sticking to their nuclear power plan, claiming it will ultimately be cheaper. As this political showdown heats up, one thing’s clear: the fight over climate action and energy costs isn’t cooling down anytime soon.
