Life on the West Island - Changing seasons

In the last week of winter, Life on the West Island visited the nation’s capital, to find that most of the “spring” blossom was almost finished, with tulips and daffodils already in bloom. This is causing consternation for the organisers of Floriade, the national tulip festival which usually begins in mid-September and concludes on the last day of the Labour Day long weekend in the middle of October. They say that spring has arrived weeks early and that their festival may have to be brought forward.

Around the country, similar events are being reported, with record high temperatures measured in every state and territory, and the month of August now confirmed as the hottest in recorded history. 2024 is also well on the way to being easily the hottest year ever measured. While scientists have hastened to point out that “weather is not climate,” they have also agreed that changes in seasons are an indicator of climate change, as are the growing number of extreme weather events which are causing devastation in many countries, including floods, cyclones, unseasonal thunder and wind storms and sizzling heatwaves.

Alarm bells are now ringing in Canberra and around the West Island about our nation’s slow reaction to global heating and damaging climate change. Economic journalist Bernard Keane wrote:

One by one, the heat records tumbled. The highest ever winter temperature. A new Queensland winter temperature record. The hottest August in national history. Weather is not climate, of course, but the upward trend is unmistakable. The temperature records all lean to the right. Not just here. The hottest June on record globally. Summer heat records in the United States. After a record hot summer of 2023, new heat records are being set in southern Europe.

Meanwhile our greenhouse emissions remain well above where they should be to meet the government’s target of a 43% reduction of 2005 levels by 2030. Our gas exports have fallen a little, but they remain at levels well above any time before the pandemic, and thermal coal exports, which have also fallen slightly, are expected to return to record levels in coming years. The government is entirely indifferent to this contrast between Australia’s continuing addiction to fossil fuel exports and an ever-worsening climate crisis.

Meanwhile, three senior academics from the University of Queensland, including Professor Paula Jarzabkowski, pointed out that the changes in seasons associated with climate change are having huge economic impacts. They wrote this week that wild weather is costing billions of dollars and putting the future of insurance in doubt.

In a considered article published in The Conversation, they wrote:

Late winter and early spring has been marked by wild weather sweeping large parts of Australia, damaging homes and businesses and causing power outages. Such unpredictable weather is also occurring around the world and driving huge rises in premiums to the point where the future of insurance is in doubt.

In 2022, floods, hurricanes, hailstorms, winter storms and droughts amounted to more than A$149 billion in insured losses globally with losses growing five years prior. The full impact and cost of the latest events in Australia will not be known for some time, but it can be expected to be significant.

As one of the world’s most climate exposed nations, Australia is at the forefront of extreme weather effects on insurance premiums. In the “great deluge” of 2022, flooding in Queensland and New South Wales amounted to A$5.56 billion in insured losses from 236,000 individual claims.

As extreme weather generates ever-greater losses, insurers are reluctant to provide cover in higher-risk locations. Increasingly they are not offering policies, making insurance unavailable, or raising premiums to unaffordable levels. One insurer reported between 2020 and 2023, their average household premium rose by 56%. And the situation is worsening.

In 2022, 10% of Australian households faced extreme insurance stress, defined as paying more than four weeks’ gross household income for a policy. By 2024, this rose to 15% of Australian households, with the most stressed households facing premiums of up to 9.6 weeks, or 18% of their gross income.

This measure of insurance stress is based on gross household income. Yet premiums are paid from net income after tax. Many households simply cannot afford insurance with the Insurance Council of Australia estimating 23% of households are uninsured. In June 2024, the Australian Bureau of Statistics noted insurance is one of the main contributors to rising living costs across all household types.

Unsurprisingly, when needing to pay energy bills, put food on the table, and fuel in the car, many Australians have little choice but to let insurance lapse, or buy less insurance than they need to recover after a weather event.

Even for those who are insured, widespread loss from extreme weather means they cannot necessarily rely on their insurance claims to bounce back from disaster. Large numbers of claims can result in lengthy settlements, as insurer resources are stretched by the complexity of assessing damage, and the increased demand on trades and services, including temporary accommodation.

Given Australia’s reliance on home ownership for economic security, a robust rental market to support jobs, and viable small businesses to support vibrant communities, the effects of extreme weather on insurance availability and affordability are set to affect us all.

The academics also pointed out estimates from the Insurance Council of Australia that by 2030, at least one in 25 West Island homes will be uninsurable.

All West Islanders are noticing the changing pattern of seasons, with shorter, warmer winters and early onset of spring and summer. Yet it seems that many people – our governments included – give little urgency to addressing global heating arising from greenhouse gas emissions. We seem to be content with thoughts that the weather is always changing, and it will come back to normal some time. Let’s hope that this pipe dream is true. Better still, let’s all do something significant about it!