Months after other nations’ weather bureaus announced this was an El Nino year, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has declared an El Nino event is under way.

El Nino has been declared, the BoM said on Tuesday, as a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is under way (which occurs when the Indian Ocean is warmer in its west than its east).

“We’re very clear in this report that given the extreme and escalating impact of climate change, given the scale of action that’s now demanded of us, we need to be planning to reach net-zero emissions by 2035,” he said. “This is impacting the health and security of Australian communities.

“What the report does show is there’s still so much we can and must fight to save, and every tonne of carbon that we leave in the ground is an investment in a better and safer future.”

Fossil fuel projects Australia has more than 100 coal and gas projects in the pipeline, and the fossil fuel industry received $11.1 billion in subsidies from the federal government in the 2022 financial year.