By Jo Nova
Experts are wrong: After 58 years of emissions — disaster losses in Australia stay the same
Australia’s National Climate Risk Assessment dropped on us last week like the perfect propaganda-bomb — inducing headlines about our horrifying climate future, starring photos of flooded houses. But the data shows the only horror-show is the state of Australian science at the CSIRO.
The report predicts that climate change will cause $40 billion in disaster losses each year by 2050. But Professor Roger Pielke Jnr points out that the numbers come from the Colvin Review which “says no such thing”. The Colvin Review merely projects disaster costs will increase due to population growth, not “climate change”. As Pielke says “For a formal government assessment this is, at best, incredibly sloppy.” (He doesn’t add, especially when hundreds of billions of dollars depends upon it.) He expects that people relying on this report might “feel hoodwinked”. (We do).
Climate Change is not increasing disaster losses in Australia
Despite every fire, flood and spring tide being blamed on climate change, insurance costs for disasters haven’t increased in nearly 60 years, apart from what we’d expect due to inflation and population growth. Pielke got the data from the Insurance Council of Australia, and adjusted it using GDP data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to produce this graph (below). He finds there is “no trend”.
Where is the crisis?
Humanity produced eighty percent of all the emission we’ve ever produced in the last 58 years, (1,400 billion tons of carbon dioxide) yet in Australia losses due to natural disasters haven’t changed as a proportion of our economy. Here in the land of droughts and flooding rains, it is business as usual.
Source: Roger Pielke Jnr, using ICA and ABS data. Note that 2025 is through September. (See McAneney et al. 2019 for the details.)
Our population has grown from 11 million to 27 million, with more homes, farms and factories just waiting to be burned, blown away or flooded. But once the extra targets are taken into account there is no sign of any extra effect from “climate change”. All those extra buildings, bridges and cars are sitting-ducks for storms, floods, and hailstones, yet the “climate crisis” downunder is the same as it ever was.
Back in 1967 (when the graph starts) global carbon dioxide stood at an idyllic 320ppm, now it’s 425ppm, and there is nothing to show for it. How much more are we supposed to spend to prevent a crisis that isn’t happening?
The CSIRO and the BoM and climate academics serve themselves and not the taxpayers who fund them.
Professor Andy Pitman admits climate models can’t predict extreme events, El Nino, tipping points, rain or river flows, yet he (and all the others) rarely stand up to say so when our Minister for Changing the Weather, or our news media misleads the people.
The secret in plain view is that Climate modelers have no idea what really controls out climate. Arctic sea ice was supposed to disappear but it’s stayed the same for twenty years. Antarctic sea ice inexplicably grew for decades, and the modelers didn’t know why, then it suddenly declined, and the modelers didn’t see that coming either. Cyclones have declined in the Australian region and the Indian ocean. Australian sea levels have been falling for 7000 years. Deserts are not growing. Pacific Islands are not sinking. And 178 years of CO2 emissions have no measurable effect on rainfall in Australia.
The CSIRO and the BOM have reduced themselves and science to nothing more than a publicity exercise to promote government power and spending. Even the half-decent scientists left at both institutions don’t speak up when colleagues shamelessly abuse the scientific method, or lie by omission.
They still collect their salaries and their super while plumbers, farmers and truckies pay more for electricity than they should and jobs at factories and plants close down.
Shame on all the academic incompetent snobs: they are letting the country down to line their own pockets with comfortable careers.
Related posts:
- Minister Bowen says costs of inaction absolutely definitely higher even though we don’t know the cost of doing something
- Expert modeler admits they can’t predict extreme events, El Nino, tipping points, rain or river flows
- Climate Change to cost $38 gazillion dollars every ten minutes, right after I retire say all The Experts
REFERENCES
- McAneney, J., Sandercock, B., Crompton, R., Mortlock, T., Musulin, R., Pielke Jr, R., & Gissing, A. (2019). Normalised insurance losses from Australian natural disasters: 1966–2017. Environmental Hazards, 18(5), 414-433.
- ICA: Insurance Council of Australia data.
- OWID: Cumulative CO₂ emissions 1967 – 2025
- OWID: Australian population growth.
- CO2 levels: NASA
- Australian Bureau of Statistics
Image from the AFR article: “Extreme heat, property price falls: Australia’s ‘severe’ climate risk”
Pity it is not what your link shows
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If only you could read.
From the abstract,
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Something to look out for, ie, something that the alarmists will exploit: The next four decades in Eastern NSW are likely to be a period of above average rainfall and above average flood frequency. It is part of a natural cycle of course, but don’t expect alarmists to mention that.
Time-series analysis of extreme rainfall and flood events in two water catchments of Eastern New South Wales shows an indicative link to Gleissberg 87 yr cycles
https://www.authorea.com/doi/full/10.1002/essoar.10510770
Lake George was grazing land for the last four decades. Before that it was a lake for four decades, an excelLent Murray Cod fishery, and was considered for water speed records. Now it’s full again and looks likely to stay full for another four decades as the rain continues.
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They key word is insured. Insurance companies are increasingly reluctant to insure those genuinely at risk. The retreat from flood-prone areas has begun but there are still many in denial.
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The retreat from flood-prone areas has begun? So the folks of towns such as Windsor, Lismore, etc., have finally realised that to continually rebuild in flood-prone areas or river bends is a dumb idea? And local councils have finally stopped new developments on flood plains? And houses built on the banks of Brisbane river have not been rebuilt? Wow! When did all this happen?
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I think Simon is suggesting that insurance companies are retreating from offering insurance in flood prone locations. (Not building or occupation retreating)
Which could be an influence on why insured losses have not increased. i.e. no insurance, no insurance loss. Even IF disasters had increased.
Which is a fair thing to ponder.
However, in my opinion, insurers no longer offering insurance for flood events in some locations is a recent thing. So would not be showing up significantly in this analysis.
Also, the not offering flood insurance is being applied to properties that are not flood prone but simply share a postcode of some properties that are at risk. So the “retreat” is exaggerated.
The study does consider various factors such as improved mitigation, council’s attitude to approvals, etc.
Didn’t get far enough into the detail yet to see if insurance offerings is factored. But, per above, wouldn’t be showing up yet anyway.
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Good point and worth noting after there worst Brisbane floods the state government made insurers cover all policies for flood no matter whether in a flood area or not i.e. forcing everyone to pay a flood premium to cover those actually at risk.
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In Singleton, NSW, the Council has been building levy banks for over 60 years following continuing flooding. The levies were build at a height somewhat higher than the greatest recorded flood level (1955) to protect the business area of the town.
That 1955 flood level has never been exceeded.
Nevertheless, even if the climate anti-science confidence trick is real, the answer for Australia is adjustment, modification and adaptation of our built infrastructure, not spending billions of dollars on reducing Australia’s miniscule man-made CO2.
https://flooddata.ses.nsw.gov.au/flood-projects/singleton-audit-of-flood-levees
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‘ … but there are still many in denial.’
There are a lot of disbelievers taking a punt.
‘The report highlights that more than 1.5 million Australians will face the impacts of rising sea levels by mid-century, alongside escalating risks of bushfires, floods, and extreme storms.
“This national report makes clear the scale of the challenge,” Ray White Group chief economist Nerida Conisbee said.
“Yet when we look at how property buyers are currently behaving, climate risk does not appear to be a major factor in decision-making.” (Realestate)
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Climate reinsurers have sophisticated risk models that assesses property risk under different climate scenarios. Your premium will increase if the US and China scale back their greenhouse gas emission commitments.
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Sure, and if you are right you prove that Insurers benefit from climate scares because they can charge more even though their costs are not going up. “Congrats”.
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Sorry Jo, meant green; poor steering on my part.
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Simon the council where I live are heavily weighted with realestate and developers as councillors and even the Mayor , they have been approving subdivisions in a flood overlay zone despite the state government map confirming this .
Any big flood will affect 100’s of new homes and of course this will be unprecedented!
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A once respected organisation has become a mouthpiece for whatever policy the government proposes. During the Covid debacle the CSIRO supported the use of a mRNA vaccine which was not tested according to the requirements of length of time and intensity as was always required. Indeed, the organisation proposed the manufacture of the vaccines in this country, and worked towards that production.
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It’s been a long time since they did anything. Their patent rate is abysmal. An instant retirement home for scientists, they parrot from the top whatever the government wants. So for that matter does the Chief Scientist and his staff. Fire the lot. Endless retirement optimizers from the day they join, not researchers.
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As Jo points out, many of them won’t speak out against the narrative as it may put their pay check at risk or do not want to be recognised as a denier.
Similarly, doctors during the pandemic didn’t promote sensible treatments or voice concerns about the safety or effectiveness of vaccines. That is kind of understandable given APHRA could cancel their medical licences. Integrity and commitment to the scientific method seems to go out the door when the drivers of the narrative threaten one’s livelihood.
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Despite corrupt elements established by Hawke in December 1986 the CSIRO is still a marvellous organissation. It’s a lot bigger than climate change.
In the “Summer of buishfires” our local maximum temps were 3 to 4 and more above average. Ther was aslo a rainfall deficiency.. But for me, a retired farmer/firefigher, it seemed that the biggest deficiency was a will to put the fire out.
Time and again we have s een that professional firefighters just do not extinguish bushfires. They haven’t the instinct for it. They work too much by the clock and modern OH&S regulations. Volunteers do extinguish the fires, bdcause they don’t want to have to come back tomorrow.
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Or they VERY explicitly tell you that you are expected to douse the hot spots when they begin to show tell tale smoke trails.
It also seems the local shire management is getting a bit peeved when a fire gets outside your own property boundary…
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Ted1 said: “Despite corrupt elements established by Hawke in December 1986 the CSIRO is still a marvellous organissation. It’s a lot bigger than climate change.”
Corrupt elements now equal a marvellous organisation?
Yep. That’d be right. Corruption is corruption whatever language you choose to use.
It all started when Neville Wran was shoe-horned into the Chairman’s sinecure and then proceeded to infiltrate the once fine organisation with lefties. The long march through the institution was underway. It’s never stopped. Its narrative is straight out of the Marxist’s playbook.
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As Donald has stated, climate change is the worlds biggest hoax.
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And history’s biggest hoax. The people behind it are evil, he said. The South Sea Bubble, the Black Tulip, the Wall Street collapse were based on greed and runaway feedback, poor economics, not evil.
And Hitler,Goering and Goebbels lied endlessly to the Germans while they stole everything for themselves. They promised free annual holidays. A free car for every family. And of course that the proud German people were fighting evil, spoiled Americans, Russian mongol untermenschen and treacherous Jewish capitalists, all in the name of the racially superior Germans, a race which had only been invented in 1870. It was called indoctrination and propaganda. And Climate Change today.
Now a pregnant mother has publicly killed herself and her baby just to prove evil monster Donald Trump wrong. That’s the real power of propaganda even today. Snipers and suicides, driven by endless press and Democrat vitriol to fight the evil Donald Trump. And Democrat political leaders and even so called comedians know exactly what they are doing as they drive their holy war and applaud every assassin.
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Anthropogenic climate change is a hoax but as the planet’s magnetic field weakens the climate is bound to change. I fear it will give the AGW proponents the “We told you so” to convince the stupids to continue to vote them power over us.
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Climates change. Antarctica was once a jungle. Even continental drift is faster than sea level rise at present. The hoax is that we humans control the planet and should send trillions to the wise men.
And CSIRO will go down in history as the people who said nothing as Australia was destroyed with fake science.
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So sorry, the Don is wrong, the UN is THE biggest hoax the world has to endure.
The UN has perpetrated the 2nd biggest hoax. Climate Change / Global Warming / Boiling Oceans. What planet are these morons living on?? More important though, is finding which planet the moronic politicians are living on!!
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Climate .Change is the second great hoax.
First came the Hole in the Ozone layerr.
Fast appproaching comes the third. The COVID Vaxx.
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It’s interesting that the same “gent”, an avowed socialist, who was responsible for the Montreal Protocol to ban CFCs, was also responsible for setting up the UN group that became the IPCC. He had an interesting history.
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“Climate Change”AKA as “weather” may not be the scam, the true scam is the costs forced on us by the insistence that we can control global weather with windmills.
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The climate scam was created with windmill subsidies one of its objectives.
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As for BOM, it is just a bureaucratic entity, devoid of reliable forecasting. We use YR which is, bizarrely, a Norwegian weather forecasting facility, for weather forecasts for our NSW regional area. It is far more accurate than BOM.
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Then there are they forecasts for fictitious places.
A couple of years ago, I was looking for forecasts and actuals for hot places and one place I looked at was Cobar, NSW, not that I live there. The BOM provides forecasts for Cobar and actuals for Cobat Met Office and Cobar Airport. Often the forecasts were in between the two actuals, with high temps being higher at the airport and lower at the Met Office, low temps being lower at the airport and higher at the Met Office. So the Cobar used for forecasts is a ficticious place somewhere in between the Airport and the MO.
Then there is Seymour in Victoria. The BOM provides forecasts for Seymour, but actuals for Mangalore Airport, which is an airfield about 10 klms north of Seymour.
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I’m sure the genuine Dr Pielke can be trusted and the data proves he’s correct.
If insurance losses haven’t budged since 1967, then we know we have no climate emergency and we should only build reliable , safe BASELOAD energy and cancel super expensive, unreliable, toxic W & S ASAP.
And we must not listen to the liars and con merchants until they wake up and accept the facts.
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Unhappilly, that does not and has not prevented insurance premiums from ballooning with the excuse of “anthropogenic climate change” risk.
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They are certainly covering their losses, payouts in other words, because they are still making good profits. IAG paid a decent dividend so they are not going broke like many of their customers. My house insurance went up by 50% this year compared to last year. The other little trick is to keep increasing the cost of replacing the house in case of total destruction. This could be because of increased building costs which have more to do with the state of the economy rather than the state of the climate. Could it be that the two are conflated to provide cover for the ridiculous claims by government?
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And recall that most (all?) mortgage contracts REQUIRE that the owner have insurance.
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The Owners Corporation fees for our apartment block are dominated by the huge cost of compulsory insurance (owners can choose provide their own extra insurance for their internal apartment goods).
It currently costs us about $2,⁰00 a year compulsory. The OC have never made a claim in the 20 years we have lived here, so $40,000 of our money has been confiscated to provide luxury work conditions for any number of faceless insurance parasites.
I greatly dislike compulsory money taking for any reason. Work to get it banned, like I do.
Geoff S
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Under proposed mis/disinformation act the media will be exempt and of course, government – that includes globalist/communist bodies like UN, WEF. Can there be anything more twisted?
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Dr Pielke’s Insurance losses data since 1967 is very useful, but we also have the Co2 Coalition Scientists’ facts archive to explore and hopefully help us to understand more of the so called CC BS and nonsense.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/
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Huh!
Take out Black Tuesday and Cyclone Tracy and that average would be even lower.
Oh, and note how those tall bars on the Manhattan line up with the list of Natural Disasters at this link.
Tony.
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Where is the crisis? As ever , it imminent or just around the corner or just over the horizon. Just far enough away to be scary and raise insurance premiums and make stupid councils rezone coastal land, but not quite visible yet ( or ever in reality)
But boy when it comes, it will be an unprecedented tipping point for sure. I wonder if people who age through this era will ever finally wake up. Unlike the peak oil and ice age scares in the 1970s , we now have carefully curated narrative in the MSM and so called education turned into a propaganda conveyor belt. I read yesterday that a AI app was being introduced into NSW schools so now “the message” can be even better standardized and curated for thevkiddies.
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Today we have the lowest co2 levels for the last 600 million years and again after a fall in co2 then much higher again for the last 250 million years.
Certainly no Humans involved in those very high co2 levels.
But we had very low levels of 180 ppm during the last full glaciation and that’s only about 30 ppm higher than the death of plant life.
When will we think and wake up?
https://co2coalition.org/facts/current-co2-levels-are-near-record-lows-we-are-co2-impoverished/
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According to News.com. there has been a major weather anomaly occur over Antartica that could, you know, have dire consequences for some parts of Australia this summer.
Apparently the BoM didn’t see this coming, so just another failure in the system. The article does make some predictions for more rain, less rain and bushfires.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/sudden-stratospheric-warming-to-shift-australias-spring-forecast/news-story/8bdb5a64bb68bc00bbe85cd700a170f7
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Likewise here: it’s caused calm balmy (semi)tropical days, howling sou’west gales and snow, drought, flood, rain, sunshine, more snow, some minor earthquakes, inflation, stagflation, TDS and causes people to drive their EVs as if they have a death wish… I’m sure there’s a few other things too.
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There won’t be any bushfires, the island is soaked and La Nina is in the wings.
They are desperately trying to find a AGW link.
‘An SSW is a rapid warming over either pole, and while they occur on average every two years in the Northern Hemisphere, the uniformity of geography reduces their frequency in the Southern Hemisphere.’ (ABC)
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If you live in Victoria the weather is no more variable than it ever was. No year is ever consistent. We’ve had both wet and dry winters. Cool and hot summers. Probably about every 10 years there’s those big atomic bomb type bushfires. Same pattern for big floods. It’s just weather. Our predecessors knew this and then sought to abrogate that variability by building dams and an energy supply that was not dependent on the weather. They were smart, we’ve become dumb.
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Today we are living in the Quaternary and that’s the coldest period for the last 250 million years.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/we-are-living-in-one-of-the-coldest-periods-in-all-of-earths-history/
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Again, co2 has decreased to dangerous levels over the last 140 million years and levels dropped to just 180 ppm during the last full glaciation.
This graph shows that co2 level drop over the last 140 million years.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/140-million-year-trend-of-dangerously-decreasing-co2/
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Nice and useful graph. However the CO2 Coalition still simultaneously believes mankind controls CO2 because they allege it’s not in rapid equilibrium with 98% being in the ocean. On the whole though excellent work concentrating on other aspects of the hoax.
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levels dropped to just 180 ppm during the last full glaciation.
Supporting a physical chemistry fact that cold(er) liquids hold higher levels of gas in solution?
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When has the CSIRO disagreed with the government on any science?
They held the world Ocean Acidifiction conference in Hobart. No ocean in the world is acid or ever will be.
What sort of scientific advisory body is that? Whatever you say. No nuclear power for us. Cheap renewables. CO2 is man made. All the way with anything you say. Sincerely, the CSIRO.
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And then of Australia’s 43 Universities and their departments of physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, biology which have stood up and agreed with Donald Trump, President of America, that man made Climate Change is a hoax? Or the Royal Society? All we hear about is how they think windmills and solar panels are just great and full, cheap replacement for fossil fuel power. And how the Wuhan flu, now known to be a military weapon of mass destruction created by the Chinese Army, was an accidental variation on a bat virus from a region 1000km from Wuhan?
But we did learn that you can be fired and stripped of your superannuation for speaking out, as Prof Peter Ridd found out. Or the late Prof Murry Selby physicist, stripped of his job, return flights and his credit cards for telling the truth. But serial scientist Prof Tim Flannery was made Chief Climate Commissioner for the country, with a degree in English from La Trobe in 1972. Not qualified in meteorology as meteorology is only about the weather, apparently.
Australia has form in silencing scientists.
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The CSIRO website is a good read for sceptics who question CSIRO’s reputation. In a section headed: How confident are we about the science of climate change? they provide plenty of elasticity as to their predictions with this statement: The main impacts and mechanisms of physical climate change are scientifically well-understood, but specific estimates of these impacts are uncertain. . (my italics for their but)
My impression of CSIRO is that it has now degenerated to putting forth bold predictions with a back-door clause for each. For example, further on in their website they list thirteen Robust findings but follow this up with twelve Key uncertainties. In my opinion, this technique is more like a visit to a psychic than practicing the rigorous discipline of true science.
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/climate-change/Climate-change-QA/Science
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And the BOM promotes aboriginal meteorological predictions. I have not found an aboriginal language in which any tribe could count to ten.
Frankly, I prefer the Norwegian site. Literate and numerate. But then who can compete with rainbow serpent for science?
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The following FALSIFIES the assumption by many climate scientists that water vapor increase is just feedback from temperature increase caused by CO2 increase. Verification is at https://watervaporandwarming.blogspot.com
Slope of the regression equation of the UAH6.1 temperature data from Jan 1988 to Jan 2025 is 0.01648 C°/yr. (uncertainty 0.03 C° per decade (UAH assessment))
In the 37 years this amounts to 0.01648 * 37 = 0.61 C°. (uncertainty ±0.111 C°)
For a WV increase of 0.067 1/1 per C° (as determined by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation), this results in a 1/1 (per unit, (= %/100)) WV increase from temperature increase of 0.61 * 0.067 = 0.04086 1/1
The average WV during the 37 years is 28.8 kg/m^2 so the WV increase from temperature increase is 0.04086 * 28.8 = 1.177 kg/m^2
The regression equation slope of the measured WV increase is 0.0447 kg/m^2 per year
In the 37 years this amounts to 0.0447 * 37 = 1.654 kg/m^2
The measured WV increase is then 1.654/1.177 = 1.405 or about 40 % more than from just temperature increase.
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The coup de gras in terms of proof that CO2 is not making climate more dangerous is deaths from climate change which shows a 97% fall in the last 100years against a backdrop of 400% increase in population and 50% rise in CO2 levels. This is absolute irrefutable proof that whatever is happening with the climate it is not getting more dangerous in fact considerably less. In fact one should conclude that CO2 has made us a lot safer even though we know the real reason is that innovative and clever man has invented things like air conditioning, fertilisers, better building structures, better warning systems, mobile phones, television, radio etc. Adaption has taken place without subsidies as these innovations have real commercial value where the benefits far outweigh the costs and people will pay for them without assistance or coercion from the government.We should not have ever tried to reduce CO2 but always look to adapt. Its been effective in the last 100 years and I dare say it will be effective in the next 100 years.
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