CANBERRA, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of billions of dollars could be wiped off Australia's property market by climate change and extreme weather, a report has warned.
According to the Climate Council's "Compound Costs: How Climate Change is Damaging Australia's Economy" report released on Thursday, the value of Australia's property will fall 571 billion Australian dollars (399.2 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030 unless action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It found that the market in Queensland, where properties are more likely to be low-lying and near rivers or coastlines, would be hit twice as hard as that in any other state or territory.
"This is the largest analysis of property risk from climate change ever undertaken in Australia and uses the latest data from our universities," Karl Mallon, a climate risk expert who wrote the report, said in a statement.
"Queensland is on the frontline of climate change impacts in Australia and the Gold Coast, Ipswich and the Sunshine Coast local government areas have been identified as amongst highest risk to extreme weather and climate change because they are very exposed to flooding and coastal inundation."
The impacts on the economy were not reserved for the property market, with extreme weather events also expected to affect agriculture and food production.
On the current trends, agricultural and labor production is expected to fall 19 billion Australian dollars (13.2 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030 and 211 billion Australian dollars (147.5 billion U.S. dollars) by 2050.
However, Mallon wrote that the costs of climate change outlined in his report were not inevitable and could be mitigated if greenhouse gas emissions were reduced to net zero before 2050.
