Australians are paying a mental health toll as extreme heat, fires and intense downpours become more frequent and harder to predict.
The two-yearly State of the Climate report, issued by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology on Thursday, found global warming was bringing the nation more extremely hot days and fewer extremely cool days.
Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie said the report was a grim reminder there was no time to waste.
"It is frightening to read," she said.
“Climate pollution is hitting Australian families hard and the consequences are playing out in real time."
Cool-season rainfall continued to decline across the country's south, while heavy rainfall bursts were becoming more intense, the report found.
Those short-lived rainfall events were associated with flash flooding, particularly in urban areas.
The oceans around Australia were also warming, contributing to longer and more frequent marine heatwaves and coral bleaching, and becoming more acidic.
General practitioner Grant Blashki said the mental health toll of impending crises was significant.
"We’re seeing direct effects from more frequent and intense heatwaves, which research shows can worsen mental health issues and even contribute to an increase in suicidal behaviours," he said.
"On top of that, there’s a growing sense of existential stress, especially in young Australians as they grapple with predictions of future climate change and what it means for them."
After record-breaking heat in 2019, fewer temperature extremes occurred in the past four years under La Nina conditions.
But extreme heat days in three of those four years were still high when compared with most years before 2000.
Extremes such as record-low sea ice or record-high ocean temperatures globally were making forecasting weather and other impacts of climate change more difficult.
The report said the "primary and unequivocal driver" was the atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and methane.
Australia has reduced its emissions since 2005, but curbing emissions must accelerate to meet the nation's 2030 targets.
The vast majority of Australia's carbon emissions in the past decade have come from coal, oil and gas, averaging 399 million tons of CO2-equivalent per year.
Global emissions continued to grow and the world could only afford another seven years like 2023 to give itself an odds-on chance of limiting warming to 1.5C, the report found.
Another 15 years like 2023 would likely push temperatures past 1.7C.
"This is a global question and all of the world needs to be taking this seriously," CSIRO climate research manager Jaclyn Brown said.
"It's going to be tough to stop warming at 1.5 degrees."
Warming would have far-reaching implications, including in the financial services industry, which has been hiking insurance premiums to account for increasing disasters.
Housing affordability for the next generation would become less about the price tag but rather if they could afford insurance, Dr Brown said.
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said the report reiterated the urgent need to act on climate change and the government had a credible plan that would "reap the economic opportunities of the clean energy transformation".
The federal opposition has pledged to build seven nuclear plants across five states if they win government in 2025.
But questions remain over whether the plan relies on keeping ageing coal-fired power stations in operation into the 2040s.
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