{"id":671528,"date":"2026-05-15T00:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T00:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/671528\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T00:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T00:57:09","slug":"australias-housing-affordability-expected-to-worsen-and-homelessness-soar-under-fossil-fuelled-future-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/671528\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s housing affordability expected to worsen and homelessness soar under fossil-fuelled future | Housing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global heating could worsen housing affordability, push up rents and quadruple homelessness in a decade without fairer housing policies<\/a> and action to reduce emissions, new research has found.<\/p>\n

Home prices and rents in Australia are influenced by a complex mix of factors, from incomes and mortgage rates to insurance premiums<\/a>, available land and population.<\/p>\n

University of Sydney researchers modelled the housing market system, using two decades of public data, and tested its response under different climate scenarios, publishing their results in Cities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They found climate change affected housing and rental affordability under both high and low-emission scenarios, but vulnerable households were worst-hit under a fossil-fuelled future.<\/p>\n

Homelessness could be four times higher by 2036 under a high-emissions future, as homes become more expensive and rents rise relative to incomes.<\/p>\n

The scenarios were based on five plausible social and economic pathways developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The low-emissions scenario describes a future where collective action leads to a more sustainable future consistent with the Paris agreement goal to keep global heating below 2C and aim to limit the increase to 1.5C, whereas fossil fuel resources continue to be exploited under the high-emissions path.<\/p>\n

Australia, together with other countries, has committed to the Paris agreement<\/a> and has set targets to cut emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by 2030, and 62-70% by 2035 and \u201cnet zero\u201d by 2050.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"WhatWhat does net zero emissions actually mean? And is it different to the Paris agreement? \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Associate Prof Nader Naderpajouh from the University of Sydney said the impacts of global heating on housing were \u201cvery unequal\u201d and particularly affected renters and people experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n

Climate change does not feature prominently in housing policy discussions, he said, but it should. \u201cWe\u2019re showing that climate change has an impact, and the impact is very divergent, [it] increases the gap.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot address the housing system by one blanket policy,\u201d he said. Policies or interventions should prioritise and tailor support for renters on low incomes, and to address homelessness.<\/p>\n

The federal budget\u2019s investment in social housing for more than 4,000 young people<\/a> was an example of a targeted measure, Naderpajouh said, but a \u201cdrastic increase\u201d in social housing was needed.<\/p>\n

Measuring progress was important, he said, as well as ensuring any housing delivered was high quality and secure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pressure is already on for Australians in the housing market and we see worsening social inequities in the future. We need<\/a> to design fairer housing policies or this is the trajectory we\u2019re heading towards,\u201d said Peyman Habibi-Moshfegh, lead author of the paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur findings show that any new housing policies need to undergo climate-change simulations to make sure they don\u2019t deepen inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Economist Nicki Hutley, a councillor with the Climate Council, said climate change \u201cshould be front and centre\u201d as a consideration of housing policy, both in terms of emissions reduction \u2013 through energy efficiency and better building standards \u2013 as well as the resilience of homes, livelihoods and communities to extreme weather.<\/p>\n

The federal government\u2019s recent national climate risk assessment<\/a> \u201claid bare some pretty uncomfortable truths about the level of risk our homes are at\u201d, Hutley said.<\/p>\n

Among its many findings, the risk assessment said 10% of residential housing would be located in areas considered very high risk by 2030, and that longstanding inequalities were being worsened by the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

Hutley said the housing and tax changes in the budget showed the federal government was capable of acting on issues beyond one electoral cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need them to take the same approach to climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global heating could worsen housing affordability, push up rents and quadruple homelessness in a decade without fairer housing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-671528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}