Written by Emma Luimes
The cost of natural disasters could double in the next six years according to research conducted by The Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.
The ABC reported that emergency workers have been warned that the intense weather Tasmania experienced in the last few weeks could become more common.
The CRC report recommends that funding for natural disasters needs to be reviewed because of the “recent trends in the costs for natural disasters in Australia”.
Australia has not reviewed its disaster funding arrangements since 2002.
The report says there is a “critical need” to continue research into the impacts of locked-in climate change and demographic changes.
Locked-in climate change refers to the impact resulting from past greenhouse gas emissions.
The CRC says that Australia’s natural hazard researchers and emergency management agencies “clearly have much work to do if they are to sufficiently understand the influence of climate change on the nation’s level of bushfire, flood and other hazard risks”.
The Deloitte Access Economics Report 2013 said that: “In 2012 alone, the total economic cost of natural disasters in Australia is estimated to have exceeded $6 billion. Further, these costs are expected to double by 2030 and to rise to an average of $23 billion per year by 2050, even without any consideration of the potential impact of climate change”.
This is pretty terrifying, isn't it? There are times I can hardly bare to think about these difficulties because it is so frustrating that nothing is being done while time ticks away.