Cities on Australia’s east coast would endure at least twice as many sweltering days above 35 degrees by 2050, while large swaths of the Northern Territory and South Australia would be all but uninhabitable for months of the year, new analysis shows.
If no climate action is taken, by 2090 Darwin would endure 283 days a year over 35 degrees, and a similar number of nights above 25, the analysis shows. “In other words, by the time a child born today is entering retirement, the city could be facing temperatures over 35 degrees for more than nine months of the year,” the council said.
“If we don’t take further steps now, some neighbourhoods and communities will become so hot people will struggle to live there. It’s not something that’s far off, it’s here and now it will define the coming decades.”The South Australian town of Oodnadatta, which recorded the highest known temperature in Australia in 1960, would also be all-but uninhabitable for months of the year.