Climate pollution and El Niño: a dangerous double act

The Climate Council

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - JUNE 16 2026

The Climate Council is warning that climate pollution and El Niño will combine in Australia this year to supercharge the risk of dangerous drought, heatwaves and fires.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology this afternoon officially declared an El Niño is now present. This climate driver is usually associated with lower rainfall and higher temperatures in Australia, particularly in south-eastern states. Together climate pollution and El Niño load the dice, so they are more likely to land on record heat and fire conditions.

Climate Councillor, Adjunct Professor Andrew Watkins said: “It’s important to understand that this El Niño is happening in an Australia that’s significantly hotter than 120 years ago, with the highest levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 800,000 years.

“Climate pollution from coal, oil and gas supercharges heat, dangerous fire weather and aggressive events like flash droughts. Together, climate pollution and El Niño are loading the dice towards record heat and fire conditions.”

“As a climate scientist it’s extremely confronting to realise that La Niña years happening today are hotter than the El Niño considered hot last century. We saw exactly that play out over summer when heat records tumbled across Australia during a La Niña, which is typically cooler and wetter.”

Climate Councillor and physician Dr Kate Charlesworth said: “El Niño and climate pollution together is a nightmare combination for our health. Doctors will be bracing for when heat arrives, because they know how deadly it can be.

“Extreme heat causes around 10 times more hospitalisations than any other extreme weather event, with research telling us that for every degree rise in maximum temperatures, we can expect more emergency department visits. That’s going to put all health services under even more strain.”

Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said: “This double whammy of climate pollution and El Niño will hit many of us hard. Many farmers are already dealing with drought conditions, while those on the urban bushland fringe are at even greater risk of dangerous fire conditions.

“Even if our home is never in the path of a fire, we’re still paying a high price for climate pollution through skyrocketing insurance premiums. In 2025, Australians paid up to $700 more for home and contents insurance premiums than the year before. The fact is, coal, oil and gas corporations are profiting from polluting products at the same time that Australians are paying the second-highest disaster costs in the world.”

Also available for interview:

Climate Councillor, Professor DavId Karoly - Professor Emeritus at University of Melbourne, formerly Leader of the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub in the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program, based in CSIRO.

Location: Melbourne

Climate Council Fellow Dr Linden Ashcroft - senior lecturer in climate science and science communication at The University of Melbourne. Formerly a climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, as a Senior Researcher in the Centre for Climate Change at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Catalonia, Spain

Location: Melbourne

ENDS

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