# Australia braces for extreme summer as climate crisis worsens

> Prime minister Anthony Albanese warns of floods, cyclones and heat ahead, citing a brewing super El Niño and rising sea levels across the Pacific.
- Title: Australia braces for extreme summer as climate crisis worsens
- Summary: Prime minister Anthony Albanese warns of floods, cyclones and heat ahead, citing a brewing super El Niño and rising sea levels across the Pacific. Australian…
- Keywords: anthony albanese, australia, climate change, tuvalu, fiji, cop31, el niño, pacific islands, fossil fuels, news, politics, braces
- Source: the Guardian — https://theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/06/agreement-to-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels-not-open-for-renegotiation-pacific-leader-tells-pre-cop
- Published: 2026-10-06T11:36:12+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: anthony albanese, australia, climate change, tuvalu, fiji, cop31, el niño, pacific islands, fossil fuels, news, politics
## Australia faces hazardous summer
Prime minister Anthony Albanese warned Australia expects a summer of floods, cyclones and extreme heat due to climate breakdown and a rising super El Niño in the Pacific.

> Climate change is not a problem for the future. It is here right now
## Sea levels rising faster here
Sea levels in the western Pacific are rising at more than twice the global average, Albanese said at a climate summit in Fiji, showing the world cannot afford to let the one point five degree Celsius goal slip away.

> sea levels here in the western Pacific are rising at more than twice the global average
## Tuvalu's precarious position
A delegation visited Tuvalu, a collection of three reef islands and six atolls home to about ten thousand people, sitting mostly less than two metres above sea level and facing existential climate threats.
## A young voice from Tuvalu
Melelusi Sokotia, a thirteen-year-old local student, told leaders her friends dreamed of becoming teachers, doctors and builders but spent their lives wondering if their island would survive into adulthood.

> We are not asking for peace. We are asking for help and partnership.
## Island states need climate finance
Tuvalu's prime minister Feleti Teo stressed island states needed faster access to global climate finance to deal with worsening extreme events, questioning why countries should take on debt for a crisis they did little to cause.

> Why should countries like Tuvalu take on more debt to protect ourselves from a climate crisis we did so little to cause?
## Fossil fuel transition non-negotiable
Fijian prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka said the world was overshooting the one point five degree goal and must bring forward emission cuts, stressing the fossil fuel transition agreed at Cop28 in Dubai in twenty twenty-three is not open for renegotiation.

> The transition away from fossil fuels was agreed to by all of us in Dubai. It is not open for renegotiation.
## Tuvalu's mounting financial costs
Tuvalu's director of climate change Jamie Ovia told visitors sea level rise would increase annual damage costs from flooding and storm surges to thirty-four million US dollars by twenty fifty and sixty-three million dollars by twenty one hundred, exceeding Tuvalu's entire GDP.

> We need time to adapt. Will you act with Tuvalu, and will you act in time?
## Fishing stocks at risk
Warming seas could reduce Tuvalu's coastal fishing catch by sixteen percent and cause the loss of tuna stocks worth four million dollars a year, Ovia said, as the delegation toured a land reclamation project extending the atoll by about twenty hectares.
## Key takeaway

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese warned his country faces a hazardous summer of floods, cyclones and extreme heat due to climate breakdown and a rising super El Niño.