Climate change will make it impossible to play sports outside

If temperatures continue to rise, Australians will no longer be able to play sport outside, according to a global report released today.

Australians may soon be unable to play sports outside if temperatures continue to rise, experts have warned.

It’s just one of the grim scenarios coming out of the release of the latest cycle of reporting from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report also highlighted that the state’s agriculture sector was especially vulnerable to climate change’s effects.

Released in the shadow of major flooding across Queensland and in NSW, it said while actions to reduce climate risks had increased worldwide, they fell well short of what was required.

“Successful adaptation requires urgent, more ambitious and accelerated action and, at the same time, rapid and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions,” the report said.

As action stalls, many species – including human beings – are reaching their limits in their ability to adapt to climate change.

Report co-author and IPCC Australian vice chair Mark Howden said coral reefs were just one example.

But he warned Australians could soon also be reaching their own physiological limits.

“Our bodies can cope with hot, hot temperatures outside up to a point,” Professor Howden said.

“But then we can’t do that without some sort of active cooling. If you get very high temperatures and humidity, you either have to pull back on your exercise or you overheat.

“Or ... if you’re still wanting to be active, you actually have to find some way of having active cooling in that environment.”

Professor Mark Howden is Director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University.

He added Australian workdays might also need a rethink – with options including a siesta during the day to avoid the hottest temperatures.

Co-ordinating lead author of the report’s Australia/New Zealand chapter, Professor Brendan Mackey, said declining rainfall during the crop growing season in southern agricultural areas had “implications for rain-fed agriculture”.

“The increasing frequency, severity and duration of extreme heatwave events is another big factor that will impact on SA, on many aspects (including) direct impacts on human health, outside workers, but there’s also agricultural implications as well,” said Prof Mackey, of Griffith University.

Prof Howden said climate change was already “a big drag” on productivity, reducing crop yield and water-use efficiency, burning fruit and dessicating cereal crops, and causing heat stress in livestock.

“We’re likely to see those sort of negative impacts accelerate as climate change progresses,” he said. “And that means we need to be even smarter in terms of how we farm in an even more variable and changing environment.”

The report said management measures included trying new drought-tolerant plant varieties and diversifying crops.

RMIT Professor Lauren Rickards noted “fantastic regional climate change” adaptation work was being done by NRM bodies and local councils in SA.
Prof Rickards said South Australia, needed to co-operate with other states in the Murray Darling system to avoid “some very uneven and also unjust outcomes”.

She also congratulated SA on taking a “place-based approach” to adaptation.

“Public space green infrastructure, biodiversity outcomes, and some of the best place-based adaptation at a regional scale is occurring in South Australia,” she said.

The report from Working Group 2 of the IPCC is part of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) – a set of comprehensive scientific summaries published every six to seven years by the UN-backed body.