In March, the city of Sydney, Australia switched off the lights for one hour, kicking off a year-long campaign to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent. Credit: Ian Waldle/Getty
No country on Earth is experiencing the early signs of a warming world as keenly as the land down under. Recent data shows that temperatures in Australia are escalating faster than the global average: Of the country's 20 warmest years on record, 15 have occurred since 1980. The past 10 years have seen the lowest rainfall amounts in at least 100 years and perhaps since Europeans arrived on the continent. According to leading climatologists, the doubled severity of heat and drought suggests that Australia could be a "canary in the coal mine" of climate change, providing the world with a glimpse of what's to come.
While other nations are debating how best to tackle a somewhat nebulous future scenario of climate change, for Australia that future is today. And this country—with the biggest per capita carbon footprint of any developed nation in the world—is now emerging as an exemplar for sweeping environmental reform. Rising social concerns about water have created a greater awareness of global warming, which has, in turn, prompted a broad political response. Scientifically informed solutions to both the water and climate dilemmas are being rolled out for the first time on a national stage. As experts predict crises akin to Australia's "Big Dry" in many other parts of the world, how this nation responds will reveal much about our collective ability to reverse course on climate change.
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The Murray-Darling River Basin, a region the size of France and Spain combined, is Australia's breadbasket and the source of 75 percent of its national water supply. In 2006, water flow into the basin reached an all-time low. The harvest of the country's three major grains is now forecast to be down by 60 percent from the previous year, and the combined economic toll on agriculture is estimated at $5.3 billion. In an urgent meeting with the Commonwealth Government, David Crombie, president of the National Farmer's Federation, said, "When you consider the Murray-Darling Basin constitutes 40 percent of the total value of Australian agriculture production, we're talking about a national economic crisis we have not seen before in this country."
While droughts of the past have mainly affected the country's rural interior, this one has also hit its urban centers—cities like Canberra, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth—where more than 85 percent of the population lives. "Every major Australian town and city has been on very significant water restrictions for at least a year, and Canberra's been on water restrictions for nearly three," says David Freudenberger, director of science and major projects for Greening Australia, the country's largest environmental organization. "We don't use hoses outside. We're not allowed to use sprinklers during the day. In my house, for the last two years, we've been pumping water from the washing machine onto the backyard to keep the trees alive." In Brisbane, where water restrictions are most severe, electrical utilities are even being shut down. "They don't have enough water to generate steam for the power plants," says Freudenberger. In April, water supply to urban centers became so critically low that despite a "potentially devastating impact" on agriculture, John Howard, Australia's prime minister, predicted a likely ban on farming irrigation in the coming year. "It's a grim situation," he said.
Restrictions on water, increased electricity prices, and the threat of agricultural collapse have been humbling. "Australians are becoming more aware of our social, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities to climate," says Neil Plummer, senior climatologist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.