Fossil Fuel Pollution Overtakes Natural Climate Drivers, Australian Report Says

Report findings

Record global pollution from coal, oil and gas is overtaking natural climate drivers such as El Niño and La Niña, according to a new report by the Climate Council of Australia. The report says this is accelerating the phenomenon known as climate whiplash, in which communities are rapidly hit by one disaster after another.

The 83-page report, *Breakneck Speed: Summer of Climate Whiplash*, says that even a cooling La Niña could not prevent record heat and catastrophic fires across Australia during the past summer. It describes climate whiplash as the rapid shift between opposing weather extremes, such as catastrophic fire conditions and flash flooding.

According to the report, these sudden swings cause more damage than individual events alone and affect agriculture, infrastructure, biodiversity and human health. It says climate whiplash is becoming more frequent and more severe in a much warmer and more energetic climate driven by record global fossil fuel pollution.

Extreme swings across Australia

The report highlights climate whiplash events during the quarter from December 2025 to February 2026. Climate Councillor, meteorologist and Monash University adjunct professor Andrew Watkins said climate change is now the main force shaping Australia’s temperatures, noting that 2025 both started and ended in La Niña.

La Niña typically cools large parts of Australia, yet 2025 was still the country’s fourth hottest year and the world’s third hottest year on record. Watkins said hotter oceans and atmosphere are causing more water to evaporate, increasing moisture in the air and making storms produce heavier rainfall.

He said some towns in western Queensland recorded their average annual rainfall within the first five weeks of 2026. A tropical low in February then led to flood watches across nearly half the continent. Inland areas that had endured more than a week of temperatures above 45C in January were cut off by floodwaters and boggy roads a month later.

Rising fire and insurance costs

Climate Councillor and former New South Wales fire commissioner Greg Mullins said catastrophic fire conditions were once seen as once-in-a-generation events but are now arriving every decade. He said the climate baseline has shifted, producing larger, faster and more destructive fires more often.

Mullins said stronger winds mean destructive fires can occur even on cooler days, citing fires in Tasmania that destroyed 19 homes. He added that communities are being hit by successive disasters with little time to recover.

The report also found that insurance companies paid out an average of A$4.5 billion a year between 2019 and 2024, more than double the average annual cost over the previous 30 years. Mullins said those costs would keep rising unless governments stop supporting coal, oil and gas pollution and accelerate the shift to clean energy.