Quiet adapting - Climate change is a verboten topic in the Trump administration. But that hasn’t stopped the US military from continuing to prepare for it.

 

Tyndall is being rebuilt as a super-resilient “installation of the future.”

Photographer: Patrick Focke/US Department of Defense via Digital

 

 By Amanda Kolson Hurley

 

 

When Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm, tore through Florida’s Tyndall Air Force Base in 2018, it battered F-22 stealth fighter jets, destroyed hundreds of buildings and churned up 700,000 cubic yards of debris. The total cost of the damage approached $5 billion.

Now, Tyndall is being rebuilt as a super-resilient “installation of the future.” New buildings sit more than a foot above the ground, to remain dry through 75 years of sea-level rise. Their roofs are designed to withstand winds of up to 165 miles per hour. Manmade oyster reefs will protect coasts by breaking up waves.

The massive project will be 70% complete next year, said the officer leading it, Col. Robert Bartlow, chief of the US Air Force Civil Engineer Center Natural Disaster Recovery Division. “This is a first for the Air Force,” he said, with large-scale, cutting-edge construction taking place “on top of an existing base, while there was a continued flying mission.”

 

Storms like Michael are becoming more powerful and damaging as the world warms, and many military installations are exposed to them and other climate hazards. Still, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth vowed last year that the Pentagon wouldn’t do any “climate change crap” on his watch. Biden-era climate action plans were scrapped, and the 2025 National Security Strategy invoked climate change only to label it a “disastrous” ideology. Hegseth canceled nearly 100 research studies related to global warming and security, which experts say will compound the loss of climate knowledge across the federal government under President Donald Trump.

“Because ‘climate’ is a dirty word, we’re not investing in that predictive capability,” said Sherri Goodman, secretary general of the non-governmental International Military Council on Climate and Security and, from 1993 to 2001, the US deputy undersecretary of defense for environmental security.

But as Tyndall shows, the Defense Department is still engaged on one front of the climate fight: steeling its bases against the effects of a warming atmosphere, such as higher seas, fiercer storms and deadlier fires. A new flood wall is rising at the US Naval Academy in Maryland; a low-lying Air Force runway is being elevated in Virginia; and projects are underway to reduce wildfire risk around various military sites in Hawaii.

Work that was previously described as confronting the climate threat is now touted for ensuring “resilience” and “readiness.” The semantics are a nod to necessity: At stake are hundreds of billions of dollars of assets and the ability to launch missions quickly and smoothly.

Much of the military’s resilience work began years ago; construction timelines are long. The $900 billion 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which Trump signed into law in December, includes measures that could be said to come under the umbrella of climate adaptation. The law bolsters the military’s ability to respond to wildfires; raises the cost limit for replacing structures destroyed by disasters; and requires military leaders to identify the biggest risks to water security on bases.

Close to $400 billion of federal government assets, most of them belonging to the Defense Department, are at high risk of being hit by a major coastal flood or storm in coming years, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis.

The Pentagon explicitly recognized the warming climate as a danger for many years. The 2008 National Defense Strategy flagged climate change as an emerging risk, and two years later it was named a national security threat in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review. After that, the Defense Department and the individual armed forces put out a stream of climate and sustainability plans. (Some have now been removed from government websites.)

James Mattis, who served as defense secretary during President Donald Trump’s first term, described climate change as a destabilizing force in 2017. His Biden-era successor Lloyd Austin said in 2021, “We face all kinds of threats in our line of work, but few of them truly deserve to be called existential. The climate crisis does.”

Trump and Hegseth have made a sharp pivot. In a March 2025 memo to military leaders, Hegseth called climate change a “distraction” from fighting wars, ordered that references to it be removed from mission statements and barred any environmental initiatives from being included in the Future Years Defense Program, a strategic plan.

Hegseth also included a caveat big enough to steer an aircraft carrier through. “Nothing in this memorandum,” he wrote, “shall be construed to prevent the department from assessing weather-related impacts on operations, mitigating weather-related risks, conducting environmental assessments, as appropriate, and improving the resilience of military installations.”

The overarching goal at Tyndall, Bartlow said, is “preserving lethality in a high-end combat capability. When we talk about resilience, it’s focused on preserving that combat capability.” If another Category 5 hurricane hits, “there’ll be some interruptions, but the idea is you’ll be able to recover this installation quickly,” hesaid. “You can make that direct link back to readiness.”

Critical Atlantic current significantly more likely to collapse than thought. Scientists say finding is ‘very concerning’ as collapse would be catastrophic for Europe, Africa and the Americas

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is a major part of global climate system and is known to be at its weakest for 1,600 years as a result of climate crisis. Photograph: Henrik Egede-Lassen/Zoomedia/PA

by  Damian Carrington Environment editor

 

The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding “very concerning” as a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system and was already known to be at its weakest for 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis. Scientists spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021 and know that the Amoc has collapsed in the Earth’s past.

Climate scientists use dozens of different computer models to assess the future climate. However, for the complex Amoc system, these produce widely varying results, ranging from some that indicate no further slowdown by 2100 to those suggesting a huge deceleration of about 65%, even when carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning are gradually cut to net zero.

 

The research combined real-world ocean observations with the models to determine the most reliable, and this hugely reduced the spread of uncertainty. They found an estimated slowdown of 42% to 58% in 2100, a level almost certain to end in collapse.

The Amoc is a major part of the global climate system and brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. A collapse would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50-100cm to already rising sea levels around the Atlantic.

Dr Valentin Portmann, at the Inria Centre de recherche Bordeaux Sud-Ouest in France and who led the new research, said: “We found that the Amoc is going to decline more than expected compared to the average of all climate models. This means we have an Amoc that is closer to a tipping point.”

Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said: “This is an important and very concerning result. It shows that the ‘pessimistic’ models, which show a strong weakening of the Amoc by 2100, are, unfortunately, the realistic ones, in that they agree better with observational data.”

He added: “I now am increasingly worried that we may well pass that Amoc shutdown tipping point, where it becomes inevitable, in the middle of this century, which is quite close.”

Rahmstorf, who has studied the Amoc for 35 years, has said a collapse must be avoided “at all costs”. “I argued this when we thought the chance of an Amoc shutdown was maybe 5%, and even then we were saying that risk is too high, given the massive impacts. Now it looks like it’s more than 50%. The most dramatic and drastic climate changes we see in the last 100,000 years of Earth history have been when the Amoc switched to a different state.”

 

The Amoc is slowing because air temperatures are rising rapidly in the Arctic because of global heating. That means the ocean cools more slowly there. Warmer water is less dense and therefore sinks into the depths more slowly. This slowing allows more rainfall to accumulate in the salty surface waters, also making it less dense, and further slowing the sinking and forming an Amoc feedback loop.

The Amoc system is highly complex and subject to random natural variations, making precise predictions impossible. However, a major weakening is now expected by scientists and that alone could have serious impacts in the decades to come.

The new research, published in the journal Science Advances, explored four different ways of using real-world observations to assess the models. They found a method called ridge regression, which had been little used in climate science before now, provided the best results.

The Amoc is difficult to model because it is governed by subtle differences in water density caused by salinity changes over the entire Atlantic. The reduction in uncertainty in the new analysis results from identifying the models that better reflect surface salinity in the south Atlantic, which scientists already knew was important. This makes the work “very credible”, said Rahmstorf.

Rahmstorf said Amoc slowdown in 2100 may be even greater than in the new, pessimistic assessment. This is because the computer models do not include the meltwater from the Greenland ice cap that is also freshening the ocean waters: “That is one additional factor that means the reality is probably still worse.”

US had hottest March on record as nation faced ‘unprecedented’ heat. The continental US registered its most abnormally hot month in 132 years of records, according to Noaa data

 

A person wears a hat while walking along the Strand in Redondo Beach, California, on 20 March 2026, during a heatwave. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

 Associated Press

March’s persistent unseasonable heat was so intense that the continental United States registered its most abnormally hot month in 132 years of records, according to federal weather data. And the next year or so looks to turn the dial up on global warmth even more, as some forecasts predict a brewing El Niño will reach super strength.

Not only was it the hottest March on record for the US but the amount it was above normal beat any other month in history for the lower 48 states. March’s average temperature of 50.85F(10.47C) was 9.35F (5.19C) above the 20th-century normal for March.

That easily passed the old record of 8.9F set in March 2012 as the most abnormally hot month on record – regardless of the month of the year – according to records released on Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).

 

The average maximum temperature for March was especially high at 11.4F above the 20th-century average and was almost a degree warmer than the average daytime high for April, Noaa said.

Six of the nation’s top 10 most abnormally hot months have been in the last 10 years. This February, which was 6.57F above 20th-century normal, was the 10th highest above normal.

“What we experienced in March across the United States was unprecedented,” said Shel Winkley, a meteorologist with Climate Central, a non-profit science research group.

“One reason that’s so concerning is just the sheer volume of records, all-time records that were set and broken during that time period,” Winkley said. “But also this is coming on the heels of what was the worst snow year. And the hottest winter of record.”

April 2025 to March 2026 was the warmest 12-month period on record in the continental United States, according to Noaa.

On 20 and 21 March, about one-third of the nation felt unseasonable heat that would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, Climate Central calculated.

More than 19,800 daily temperature records were broken for heat across the country, according to meteorologist Guy Walton, who analyzes Noaa data. More than 2,000 places set monthly records for heat – harder to break than daily records – Walton calculated. That’s more March heat records set just last month than in entire decades in the past.

All those broken records “tells us that climate change is kicking our butts”, said Jeff Masters, a Yale Climate Connections meteorologist.

“January through March period was the driest on record for the contiguous US. So not only was it hot, it was record dry as well,” Masters said. “And that’s a bad combination for water availability, for agriculture, for river levels, for navigation.”

The European climate and weather service Copernicus and Noaa are both forecasting a “super” strong El Niño to form in a few months and intensify into the winter.

“A strong El Niño could plausibly push global temperatures to new record levels in late 2026 and into 2027,” Victor Gensini, a Northern Illinois University meteorology professor, said.

Arctic sea ice just dropped to an alarming new low

 

Arctic sea ice has reached a record winter low this year. Photographer: Michael Runkel/imageBROKER/Alamy/File

 

By Laura Paddison

 

Right now, the Arctic is maxing out on sea ice – the cold of winter has built up over months of darkness, and ice has spread as far south as it will all year. It’s the North Pole’s sea ice maximum, except this year, it’s alarmingly low.

There is roughly half a million square miles of ice missing in this year’s “max,” compared to average — an amount twice the size of Texas.

It’s the latest profoundly worrying signal from the top of the planet, a region which has become a clear victim of the climate crisis as humans burn fossil fuels, and increasingly a geopolitical hotspot as melting ice opens up commercial and military opportunities.

Winter is when Arctic ice builds up, typically reaching its maximum extent in March. This year, when scientists from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center measured it on March 15, they found the ice had reached 5.52 million square miles — roughly 9% lower than the average between 1981 and 2010. 

 

It came in just below last year’s record maximum of 5.53 million square miles, but close enough to it that it’s technically a tie, and is the lowest peak observed since satellite records began in 1979.

“A low year or two don’t necessarily mean much by themselves,” said Walt Meier, a NSIDC ice scientist, but when looked at in the context of a multi-decade downward trajectory, “it reinforces the dramatic change to Arctic sea ice throughout all seasons.”

Scientists are concerned about what it will mean for the spring and summer melt season. The last 19 years have seen the lowest sea ice levels on record.

The Arctic will be ice-free in the summer at some point by 2050, even if humans stop pumping out climate pollution, according to a 2023 study. 

 

Disappearing sea ice has global impacts. Ice acts like a giant mirror, reflecting the sunlight away from the Earth and back into space. As it shrinks, more of the sun’s energy is absorbed by the dark ocean, which accelerates global heating.

This new record is not a surprise as Arctic sea ice had been running at near record lows all winter, said Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center. But it’s one more alarm bell.

“Like when a person’s blood pressure is out of whack signaling a health problem, the ongoing loss of sea ice is yet another symptom indicating the Earth’s climate is in big trouble,” she said.

The cause is no mystery she added, “the ongoing buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels is warming the oceans, heating the air, melting the ice, and worsening weather extremes all around the world.”

Record high ocean temperatures off southern California raise fears of prolonged marine heatwave

The waters of southern California historically warm every few years. But the marine heatwave that started last fall wasn’t caused by tropical currents. Photograph: Kevin Carter/Getty Images

by  Roque Planas

 Researchers warn the high-pressure conditions could disrupt marine life and ecosystems if it continues

For more than a century, shoreline stations operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have measured water temperatures along the California coast. This year, they are flashing a warning sign.

Over the last three months, several stations have repeatedly posted record-breaking daily high temperatures – with the La Jolla station registering temperatures a full 10F above historical average at one point last month.

The waters of southern California historically warm every few years as tropical currents make their way north, a phenomenon known as El Niño. But the marine heatwave that started last fall wasn’t caused by tropical currents. Instead, a high-pressure atmospheric system – think of calm, sunny days – has perched above southern California, warming both air and sea above historic levels. The same phenomenon has helped fuel a ferocious California heatwave on land.

 

The extended ocean warming has drawn comparisons to “the Blob”, a three-year marine heatwave caused by similar prolonged high-pressure conditions a decade ago that devastated marine life. The next few weeks are likely to determine whether this marine heatwave fizzles out or evolves into something more Blob-like, scientists say.

“The biggest concern is how the year plays out,” Andrew Leising, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said. “We could be looking at much larger impacts next fall and winter, if it stays warm and then it’s followed by a strong El Niño.”

 

It’s typical in the spring for shifting atmospheric conditions to generate north-westerly winds that push warm surface water back out to the open ocean, allowing cooler water from below to rise to the surface – a phenomenon called upwelling. Upwelling brings nutrient-rich water from the depths to the surface, feeding the phytoplankton that play a crucial role in supporting much of California’s marine life.

Over the last few days, high water temperatures have cooled somewhat, raising the prospect that the heatwave may be dissipating already. It will take more time, however, to know for sure that the heat is clearing.

“The expectation right now is that likely the waters down to even southern California should start cooling a little bit into next month, but it’s not a guaranteed thing,” Leising said. “The concern is the sequence of events and how they unfold.”

Prolonged ocean heat has a devastating impact on phytoplankton and can cause harmful algal blooms. Those changes can wreak havoc on many forms of marine life, from sea lions and dolphins, to shore birds and halibut. The Blob years led to one of the worst Dungeness crab seasons in recent history, said Melissa Carter, a researcher at the UC-San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Such heatwaves are becoming more common and lasting longer, partly because of the slow warming of the oceans driven by the climate crisis, and partly because of atmospheric changes that scientists are still struggling to understand.

“The question is what’s causing us to have these extreme warm temperatures?” Carter said. “What are the drivers? That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

 

What concerns Carter is that once these high-pressure systems establish themselves in an area, they create a “feedback loop” that tends to reinforce warm, calm conditions, making upwelling less likely to occur, she said.

“If these systems do become that strong and persistent, where they come every year, it can have the potential to shut down upwelling,” Carter said. “Everything we think of related to the health of the ecosystems of the west coast could be forever altered.”

The lingering ocean heat offers a few upsides, though they pale in comparison with the costs. The warmer water temperatures bring tuna far closer to shore, making it easier to fish for them. Surfers and swimmers have also enjoyed warmer water through the winter.

“I enjoy being in the water when it’s a marine heatwave,” Carter said. “But our ocean should not be a swimming pool. Nothing can live in a swimming pool. That’s not what we want.”

‘On a whole other level’: rapid snow melt-off in American west stuns scientists Experts say brutal March heat has left critical snowpack at record-low levels – and key basins in uncharted territory

 

Nasa satellite images show how the snowpack in Utah has diminished between late February and late March. Illustration: Guardian Design/NASA Worldview

by  Gabrielle Canon

Snow surveys taking place across the American west this week are offering a grim prognosis, after a historically warm winter and searing March temperatures left the critical snowpack at record-low levels across the region.

Experts warned that even as the heat begins to subside, the stunning pace of melt-off over the past month has left key basins in uncharted territory for the dry seasons ahead. Though there’s still potential for more snow in the forecast, experts said it will likely be too little too late.

“This year is on a whole other level,” said Colorado State University climatologist Dr Russ Schumacher, speaking about the intense heat that began rapidly melting the already sparse snowpack in March. “Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning.”

 

Acting as a water savings account of sorts, snowpacks are essential to water supply. Measurements taken across the west during the week of 1 April are viewed as important indicators of the peak amounts of water that might melt into reservoirs, rivers and streams, and across thirsty landscapes through the summer.

It’s not just the amount of snow left on mountaintops that’s concerning experts, but the amount of moisture still frozen within them. “Snow water equivalent” (SWE), a measurement of what could melt off to supply natural and manmade systems, is exceptionally low.

Snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada. Source: Nasa.

 

California’s Sierra Nevada had just 4.9in of SWE, or 18% of average, as of Monday, ahead of the state’s official 1 April survey, according to the state’s department of water resources. In the Colorado River headwaters, an important basin that supplies more than 40 million people across several states, along with 5.5 million acres of agriculture, 30 tribal nations, and parts of Mexico, had just over 4in of SWE on Monday, or 24% of average. That’s less than half what was previously considered the record low.

Schumacher said the incoming storm could slow the early melting but won’t be enough to pull the basins back from the brink. Snow water equivalent measurements going into April were at levels typically seen in May or June, after months of melt-off, according to Schumacher.

The issue is extremely widespread. Data from a branch of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which logs averages based on levels between 1991 and 2020, shows states across the southwest and intermountain west with eye-popping lows. The Great Basin had only 16% of average on Monday and the lower Colorado region, which includes most of Arizona and parts of Nevada, was at 10%. The Rio Grande, which covers parts of New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado, was at 8%.

“This year has the potential of being way worse than any of the years we have analogues for in the past,” Schumacher said.

The snowpack in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Source: Nasa.

 

‘Nothing short of shocking’

Even with near-normal precipitation across most of the west, every major river basin across the region was grappling with snow drought when March began, according to federal analysts. Roughly 91% of stations reported below-median snow water equivalent, according to the last federal snow drought update compiled on 8 March. Water managers and climate experts had been hopeful for a March miracle – a strong cold storm that could set the region on the right track. Instead, a blistering heatwave unlike any recorded for this time of year baked the region and spurred a rapid melt-off.

“March is often a big month for snowstorms,” Schumacher said. “Instead of getting snow we would normally expect we got this unprecedented, way-off-the-scale warmth.”

More than 1,500 monthly high temperature records were broken in March and hundreds more tied. The event was “likely among the most statistically anomalous extreme heat events ever observed in the American south-west”, climate scientist Daniel Swain said in an analysis posted this week.

“Beyond the conspicuous ‘weirdness’ of it all,” Swain added, “the most consequential impact of our record-shattering March heat will likely be the decimation of the water year 2025-26 snowpack across nearly all of the American west.”

Calling the toll left by the heat “nothing short of shocking”, Swain noted that California is tied for its worst mountain snowpack value on record. While the highest elevations are still coated in white, “lower slopes are now completely bare nearly statewide”.

The snow is melting so fast in the Sierra that, if it continues at its current rate, little would be left by early April. It’s unlikely to keep up this astounding pace, but there’s still high potential for the earliest melt-off on record in the state, according to Swain.

“It is increasingly likely this season will be the one of the lowest 1 April snowpacks on record and one of the earliest peak snowpacks in the 21st century,” said Andy Reising, manager of California DWR’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit. “This year has featured many of the factors California is expected to see more of in the future: winters with more rain and less snow and stretches of hot and dry conditions.”

Snow around the Great Salt Lake seen between February versus March. Source: Nasa.

 

California’s reservoirs are nearly all filled beyond their historic averages, however, thanks to a series of robust rains. While this will help support water supplies, it will also mean fast-melting snow may be harder to capture.

In the Colorado River Basin, the situation could be even more dire. The two largest reservoirs on the Colorado River are Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which together account for about 90% of storage, are 25% and 33% full accordingly, as of 29 March, and there is little to fill them.

Already officials are in the process of relocating a floating marina on Lake Powell in anticipation of the quickly receding water levels, as experts warn the vital reservoir could drop to the lowest levels recorded since it was filled in the 1960s. If they fall far enough, the system would cease to function altogether. So-called “deadpool” – when water isn’t high enough to pass through the dams, generate hydroelectric power, and be distributed downriver – would be catastrophic.

 

The Colorado River has been overdrawn for more than a century but rising temperatures and lower precipitation are putting more pressure on the system that depended on by cities, farms, industries, and wildlife across the west. The extreme conditions have added more urgency and greater tensions to fraught negotiations over who will bear the brunt of badly needed cuts. Seven states that have blown past two key deadlines are still locked in a stalemate over how the river’s essential resources will be managed through a hotter and drier future.

But the dire snowpack numbers have pushed some municipalities to initiate early water restrictions. Local officials in Salt Lake City, Utah, have called on residents and businesses to begin conserving, with a goal to cut up to 10 million gallons, while city facilities will curb 10% of their use. Across Colorado, there are local orders that limit lawn watering, and in Wyoming residents were warned that full restrictions on outdoor irrigation could come as early as May. Farmers and ranchers across the west are also having to make hard decisions and big adjustments with smaller allocations of water and a recognition that supplies will be strained.

A troubling outlook for fire season

The fast-melting snow is expected to have profound impacts on drinking water supply, agriculture production, and outdoor recreation. It could also set the stage for bigger blazes.

“Unless there’s a major change in the weather patterns and we somehow pull out some sort of miracle springtime precipitation, we’re looking at an extended fire season,” said Dr Joel Lisonbee, senior associate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, noting that there’s not a one-to-one relationship between snowpack and fire, but they are connected.

“In any sort of fire situation, you need some spark or ignition,” he said. Landscapes that would typically spend longer underneath a protective blanket of snow will become more primed to burn. Fire season may “begin weeks to months earlier than what we would usually expect,” he said. “These high temperatures and low snowpack will lead to a rapid drying of the vegetation that’s around, and that will lead to this early start.”

Dozens of large destructive fires have already erupted in recent weeks across the Intermountain West and the High Plains, spurred by extreme heat and low moisture. More than 1.5m acres have already burned this year across the US, more than double the 10-year average.

While Schumacher said he expects this year to be a standout one, the climate crisis is fueling warming trends that climate scientists have long warned will leave the west hotter and drier. Seasons with snow in the US west are shrinking while high fire risks stretch across more months.

“Climate change is going to result in a lot of these extreme events worsening,” said Dr Abby Frazier, a climatologist and assistant professor at Clark University, who added that compound events, where hazards overlap or occur in quick succession, are on the rise. The heat and the drought this year, served as a one-two punch, and will work together to produce greater dangers from fire.

She emphasized the need to take transformative action, and prioritize adaptation and mitigation. “It is heartbreaking to see it all playing out as we have predicted for so long,” she said. “The changes we have teed up for ourselves are going to be catastrophic.”

Australia urged to swap diesel for electric buses as fuel costs soar. "Electric buses are just 1% of the Australian fleet compared with 80% in urban China, a quarter in the Netherlands and 12% in the UK"

 

Electric buses charge at the Brookvale depot in Sydney. Australia’s bus fleet is dependent on diesel but most states and territories have transition targets. Photograph: NSW government

 

 by  Petra Stock

 Electric buses are just 1% of the Australian fleet compared with 80% in urban China, a quarter in the Netherlands and 12% in the UK

 

As diesel climbs past $3 a litre amid fuel security concerns, transport advocates are calling for the rollout of electric buses across Australia to be prioritised.

In Australia, just 1% of buses are electric, compared with 80% of the urban fleet in China, a quarter in the Netherlands and 12% in the UK.

Metro trams and trains mostly run on electricity, while buses – a core part of Australia’s public transport system – remain highly dependent on diesel, consuming about 530m litres a year.

 

Industry body the Bus Industry Confederation wants buses to be prioritised in fuel security planning.

“Buses carry more than half of Australia’s public transport passengers,” the confederation’s executive director, Varenya Mohan‑Ram, said. “Fuel security is not just an operational matter. It is a matter of social equity and community resilience.

“We’re taking kids to school, we’re getting people to work.

“We are the lifeblood of regional Australia, in terms of keeping people connected.

“We just don’t have enough electric buses to carry Australians every day.”

In Australia, nearly 42,800 diesel buses were registered in 2025, compared with 629 that were battery electric – about 1% of the heavy bus fleet – according to government data

 

Most states and territories have targets to transition their fleets. Canberra and greater Sydney will be fully electric by 2040. E-buses already make up about 24% of the ACT’s fleet.

The ACT transport minister, Chris Steel, said: “Each electric bus is powered by 100% renewable electricity produced in Australia, they are cheaper to operate and not reliant on foreign fuels.”

South Australia will hit 81 e-buses this year – about 8% of the fleet – while Western Australia rolled out its 100th, and all new buses bought in Victoria are electric.

An electric bus at a charging depot in Melbourne. Rising fuel prices and uncertainty about supply make e-buses an attractive option, experts say. Photograph: James Ross/AAP

“E-buses are by far the most impactful way to cut emissions from public transport,” said Cameron Rimington, a senior policy officer at the Electric Vehicle Council.

“The benefits of electric buses aren’t contained to carbon emissions.

“Every bus running on Australian-made electricity is a bus that isn’t dependent on the strait of Hormuz, isn’t spewing exhaust into our communities, isn’t contributing to lung cancer or childhood asthma, and they’re so much quieter – for commuters and communities alike.”

Helen Rowe, the transport lead at Climateworks Centre, said public transport was a critical service and buses running on electricity were resilient against fuel shocks.

As well as buying vehicles, governments needed to plan for charging infrastructure, she said. In Victoria, bus company Kinetic recently opened a purpose-built depot with overhead charging infrastructure at Preston, in Melbourne’s north, while New South Wales has completed the first of 11 planned electric depot conversions.

 

Australia has been slower than other countries to get moving but the current crisis, rising fuel prices and uncertainty about supply could change the cost-benefit calculation, making e-buses a more attractive option, RMIT University’s Prof Jago Dodson said.

“From a simple security point of view, there’s probably a premium to be paid – to know that no matter what happens outside of Australia, we can still run our bus fleets on electricity,” he said.

Buses were also flexible, providing a key opportunity to respond to the crisis, Dodson said. They filled crucial gaps between fixed-line services and could be rolled out to meet demand and improve coverage in areas that are not currently well-serviced by public transport.

“It’s hard to roll out a rail line quickly,” he said.

Communities in Melbourne’s west have been campaigning for better bus access and services for years. They want winding and convoluted routes converted to a fast and efficient grid better able to serve local needs such as getting to the shops, school or train station.

Elyse Cunningham, the sustainable cities community organiser at Friends of the Earth Melbourne, said a lot of people drive simply because there was no other option.

 “We know the government needs to make public transport more accessible as fuel prices go up,” she said. “Buses are the fastest and the cheapest public transport solution that the government can provide.”

 

Service improvements could be “life-changing” for people in the west, she said, including many on low incomes or migrant families. The switch to electric would be a bonus, making for a quieter and smoother ride.

A community-run e-bus pilot in Gippsland, Victoria, shows what could be possible, even in regional areas. Since 2024, two mini e-buses – nicknamed Sandy and Sunny – have been providing inclusive, local transport for hundreds of passengers in a region where the ability to travel depends on owning a car.

The volunteer-run service improved wellbeing by reducing social isolation, La Trobe University’s Dr Magda Szypielewicz said.

For Dodson, the fuel crisis provided additional impetus for change, on top of the need to transition to zero carbon transport.

“Let’s hope that we can learn some lessons from this time around,” he said. “Actually use this to recognise that we do need to change and that the security of our transport systems is a core national security question.”