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After a landslide election win, there will never be a better chance to shake off old policy impasses and deliver a more ambitious plan for the environment Want to get this in your inbox when it publishes? Sign up for the Clear Air Australia newsletter here Analysis of the election result has barely begun, but this much is clear – the country has backed a rapid acceleration towards renewable energy. Labor didn’t say much about the climate crisis during the campaign, announcing only one new policy. But Anthony Albanese and his climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, emerged with their ambitious goal of the country getting 82% of electricity from solar, wind and hydro by 2030 not just intact, but emphatically endorsed. Labor’s position has been relentlessly attacked by the Coalition, rightwing organisations backed by fossil fuel interests and one of the country’s biggest news media companies. Australians rejected this comprehensively. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...

Layoffs and funding cuts to Fema and Noaa will impact how they predict and respond to disasters, warns professor Samantha Montano The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to disaster management will cost lives in the US, with hollowed-out agencies unable to accurately predict, prepare for or respond to extreme weather events, earthquakes and pandemics, a leading expert has warned. Samantha Montano, professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and author of Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, said the death toll from disasters including hurricanes, tornadoes and water pollution will rise in the US unless Trump backtracks on mass layoffs and funding cuts to key agencies. That includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), whose work relies heavily on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which is also being dismantled. Continue reading...

Gen Z want the government to address the big structural problems: housing supply, inequality and climate Australian federal election news LIVE – latest results and updates Live results: federal election votes tracker, electorates map and seat counts I often write about how younger Australians are carving out a different political identity from older generations. But the election result has reminded us of what cuts across age and sits in our national core. That deep-seated Aussie reaction: “yeah-nah, that’s a bit much” when things go too far. We’re allergic to imported bravado, anything too loud, too messianic. And, when pushed, we don’t shout – we shrug. This election was one long shrug. A rejection of chaos and division, not through fury but through an assertive, ballot-powered recoil. Dr Intifar Chowdhury is a youth researcher and a lecturer in government at Flinders University Continue reading...

US researchers link BHP, Rio Tinto, Santos, Whitehaven Coal and Woodside Energy to specific climate harms over three decades Australian federal election results 2025 LIVE – latest Australia news and updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Five of Australia’s biggest fossil fuel producers could be on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars in damages after a US research team developed a method to link individual companies to specific climate harms and put a dollar figure to the impact. This is the result of a new peer-review study published in the journal Nature that sought to establish a method that would allow courts to quantify the economic loss caused by fossil fuel producers for one kind of climate impact – extreme heat. Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter Continue reading...