Peter Dutton’s climate comments draw criticism from scientists, advocates and affected communities

Peter Dutton’s climate comments draw criticism from scientists, advocates and affected communities

Peter Dutton's refusal to say whether Australia was experiencing the worsening impacts of climate change has frustrated climate scientists and communities facing that reality.

The opposition leader was evasive when asked about climate change during the ABC's leaders' debate on Wednesday night.

Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, and natural disasters like the 2022 Queensland floods have driven up insurance premiums.

A cyclone even delayed the start of the election campaign; how Australia deals with the increasing prevalence of disasters has become a pressing issue for political leaders.

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When pressed on the question during Wednesday night's debate, Mr Dutton focused instead on the flood-affected Queensland town of Thargomindah he visited recently.

"I'll let scientists pass that judgement, I don't know because I'm not a scientist and I can't tell you whether the temperature has risen in Thargomindah as a result of climate change or the water levels are up," Mr Dutton responded.

"I think you can see there's an impact … that has been a part of the history of our state, of this country," he said of natural disasters.

"I think the honest answer for most people is that they don't know, and there are scientists who can provide advice."
'Have a chat with us'

One of Australia's leading climate scientists, Professor Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick from the Australian National University, said Mr Dutton's comments were "incredibly frustrating".


Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick says Australia is already experiencing more frequent and severe weather events because of climate change. (Supplied: Sarah Perkins)

"I can't believe we're still having this discussion in 2025. It's almost like Mr Dutton wants to reignite the climate wars," she said.

"I'm shaking my head because I still can't believe that we're having this conversation and not wholly admitting the problem."

She said the UN's recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which synthesises all available science on the topic, called it "unequivocal".

"The science is settled. It's not just a future problem. It's happening now and it's because of our activity and it's having an impact on the global climate as well as our climate here," Professor Perkins-Kirkpatrick said, urging the opposition leader to engage with the experts.

"We have many world-leading climate scientists here in Australia. Have a chat with us. Read the summary for policy makers in the most recent IPCC report and you'll see that we all agree that climate change is happening now and it's because of us."
Natural disaster fatigue

Many Australian communities are grappling with natural disasters, which have become, as predicted, more frequent.

Elly Baxter, a senior campaigner for the Climate Action Network Australia (CANA), which represents more than 160 climate-focused organisations across the country, echoed a similar sentiment.


Elly Baxter says climate policy touches every part of the election campaign. (Supplied)

"It was really disappointing to hear Mr Dutton use lines that we hear as soft denial," she said.

"Climate change affects all of the major issues that we're talking about in this election. It affects the cost of living, it affects national security, it's going to affect immigration. For him to just sort of say, 'oh, I don't know', I just don't think that's acceptable."

Ms Baxter grew up in Lismore in regional New South Wales, which has been hit by numerous flood events in the past few years. She said the comments were out of touch with what most Australians were facing.
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"There's just a lot of despair. And I think hearing the opposition leader say that not only does he not know, but he thinks most people don't know whether or not things are getting worse, that's so frustrating," she said.

"These people don't have homes. They have nowhere to live. They're fighting to have their homes relocated. They faced serious flooding again just a few weeks ago. It's just incredibly demoralising and frustrating and disappointing."

Queensland, in particular, has borne the brunt of natural disasters.

The ABC discovered a range of views when travelling through regional Queensland electorates, but Mary Brodie from Machans Beach in Cairns had some harsh words for politicians who didn't think climate change was impacting people's lives.


Mary Brodie says torrential rains brought on by Cyclone Jasper gave people a wake-up call about the reality of living with climate change. (ABC News: Nathan Morris)
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"We've seen the beachfront change … That's the one-in-100-year event, supposedly, but the threat for it to be more regular is really real.

"People are really nervous … It impacts on the cost of insurance and the cost of living, the food shortages, the shelves were bare for weeks.

"Like, take it seriously. It's not something that's not impacting on people."
The 'unequivocal' science

For the record, there is much that scientists do know and can be reported as fact on what climate change is doing to Australia, specifically.

Last year, the BOM and CSIRO released the eighth State of the Climate report, which documented how the Australian climate has changed.

Australia has already warmed by an average of 1.51 degrees and the sea surface temperatures around the continent have increased by an average of 1.08 degrees. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to avoid catastrophic warming and keep average global temperatures below 1.5 to 2 degrees.


Changes are already rippling out across Australia as a consequence of this warming.

"We're seeing an increase in the intensity, frequency and severity of heatwaves," Professor Perkins-Kirkpatrick said.

"We're seeing an increase in the severity of extreme rainfall events. We're seeing an increase in the severity of droughts. We're seeing changes in how our ecosystems respond to these changes in extremes."

Another way of looking at rising temperatures is that this extra heat adds more energy into the Earth system, which drives more extreme weather and natural disasters.
Climate change and natural disasters

Mr Dutton's reference to the flooding in the regional Queensland town of Thargomindah referred to the relationship between climate change and individual natural disasters.

While climate change is making disasters more frequent and more extreme, the relationship at an individual level is more complicated.

However, there is a branch of research called attribution science that models natural disasters and whether they were made more likely or more extreme because of climate change.
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"We can never say categorically yes or no, did climate change cause an event," Professor Perkins-Kirkpatrick explained.

"These days, climate change almost always plays a role, but any extreme event is caused by multiple factors of which climate change is one.

"It doesn't say this event would not have occurred without climate change, but it tells us the role that climate change has played."

During the leaders' debate, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese drilled into this connection in his own response.

"The science is very clear. Doesn't mean that every single weather event is because of climate change. It does mean the science told us the events would be more extreme and they'd be more frequent. That is what we are seeing playing out," Mr Albanese said.

"Whether it be increased bushfires, flooding, extreme weather events that are having an impact. When we talk about the costs, this is one of the costs — the cost to our economy as well as the cost to our environment and not acting on climate change, not being a part of the global solution, are severe."


Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton had differing opinions on the extent to which climate change was affecting Australians. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)

Professor Perkins-Kirkpatrick said there was a strong link between extreme rainfall and climate change, even if attribution work hadn't been done on these particular floods.

"Given that the science tells us that extreme rainfall is more likely with climate change, there would absolutely be a role of climate change there. It's just a matter of teasing it out," she said.

The devastating Black Summer fires in the summer of 2019-2020 burned more than 24 million hectares and directly caused 33 deaths and almost 450 more from smoke inhalation, according to the CSIRO.

In later research, it was found that the fires were "far from normal".


The Black Summer bushfires claimed 33 lives. (Supplied: Gena Dray)

"These trends are almost entirely due to Australia's increasingly severe fire weather and are consistent with predicted human-induced climate change," its study concluded.

Elly Baxter from the Climate Action Network Australia said Australians want their leaders to focus on how they are helping address the challenges of climate change.

"I think it's really disconcerting that when it comes to the very real impacts of climate change, he (Mr Dutton) doesn't know and he's not willing to kind of step up and say, 'yes, I'm going to do what it takes to protect Australian families'," Ms Baxter said.


Australians have told the ABC they want leaders to address climate change. (ABC News: Aaron Kelly)

Professor Perkins-Kirkpatrick said she was focused on what the leaders should be doing to prepare Australia for a hotter future.

"There's also a huge issue that the longer we delay net zero, the worse the future climate will be. We can't ignore that. And with that, that means that we have to adapt to what's coming," she said.

"We are ultimately locked into some climate change, whether we want to admit it or not."