Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
The frontline

Inside Australia's climate emergency: the air we breathe

For months, Australians breathed air pollution up to 26 times above levels considered hazardous to human health. The long-term impact could be devastating

This feature is best experienced with sound.
Click to play

On the worst day of the smoke, Madhumitha Janagaraja remembers watching four ambulances speed through the centre of Canberra in a single hour.

“My only thought was: how many people are going to die?” she says.

It was early January. The Australian capital had endured days of poisonous air quality. Thick smoke from fires burning in New South Wales and Victoria had rendered the city’s landmarks invisible.

On New Year’s Day in Canberra the air quality reading was the worst on the planet: 26 times levels considered hazardous to human health.

Janagaraja, a psychology student at the Australian National University, has rheumatoid arthritis. “I think for even ordinary people it makes it really hard to breathe,” she says. “But for me, when [the air pollution] increases, my levels of inflammation, my joint pain, increases massively. It gets worse every time I take a deep breath.”

By the time she asked a friend for help she had spent two days indoors, skipping meals, barely able to breathe, such was the effect of the smoke on the already inflamed joints around her rib cage.

“It’s been quite a huge loss of bodily autonomy because I’m not someone that’s very good at asking for help.”

Australia is known for its clean air. But this summer’s unprecedented fire season is changing that. Millions of people in Canberra, Sydney, and rural towns close to the fires breathed toxic pollution for months.

And experts say we don’t yet know what the long-term health effects will be.

“We’re all currently living in a big experiment,” says Donna Green, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales’ climate change research centre.

“We know it will be bad, we just don’t know how bad.”

In Sydney and Canberra, hospitals were pushed to breaking point.

David Caldicott, an emergency department doctor and senior clinical lecturer at the Australian National University, describes smoke-filled rooms, a jump in emergency respiratory cases and “many anxious parents with kids with asthma”.

The smoke that blanketed the city was so bad that it caused MRI scanners to stop working.

Donna Green has spent years studying the relationship between climate change, air pollution and human health. She says rising temperatures from climate change can increase air pollutants, such as ground level ozone.

As Australia experiences more frequent bushfires and dust storms because of climate change, we will also see an increase in air pollution, sometimes far from its original source. “We’re seeing it already and we’re going to see more of it in future,” Green says.

The most common air pollutants that are dangerous to human health are coarse and fine particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide.

Since August 2019, the air quality in Australian towns and cities has repeatedly exceeded hazardous levels

These charts show the maximum daily air quality index (AQI) reading for four locations. On the worst day in Canberra, the air quality reached 26 times the hazardous level

Port Macquarie

5,000

19x

Hazardous

15 Nov 2019

AQI: 3,805

200

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Sydney

5,000

13x

10 Dec 2019

AQI: 2,552

200

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Canberra

5,000

26x

1 Jan 2020

AQI: 5,185

200

Jan 2020

Aug 2019

Albury

5,000

6x

7 Jan 2020

AQI: 1,101

200

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Source: NSW and ACT government data. Graphic produced by: Jack Zhao / Small Multiples

A significant amount of the population has been exposed to high levels of fine particulate matter

These maps show the concentration of particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers or smaller (PM2.5) as measured from satellite

PM2.5

15 Nov 2019

Low

High

Port

Macquarie

Sydney

Canberra

Albury

PM2.5

10 Dec 2019

Port

Macquarie

Sydney

Canberra

Albury

PM2.5

31 Dec 2019

Port

Macquarie

Sydney

Canberra

Albury

PM2.5

6 Jan 2020

Port

Macquarie

Sydney

Canberra

Albury

Source: generated using Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service Information 2020. Graphic produced by: Jack Zhao / Small Multiples

Since August 2019, the air quality in Australian towns and cities has repeatedly exceeded hazardous levels

These charts show the maximum daily air quality index (AQI) reading for four locations. On the worst day in Canberra, the air quality reached 26 times the hazardous level

Port Macquarie

5,000

19x

Hazardous

15 Nov 2019

AQI: 3,805

200

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Sydney

5,000

13x

Hazardous

10 Dec 2019

AQI: 2,552

200

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Canberra

5,000

26x

Hazardous

1 Jan 2020

AQI: 5,185

200

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Albury

5,000

6x

Hazardous

7 Jan 2020

AQI: 1,101

200

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Source: NSW and ACT government data. Graphic produced by: Jack Zhao / Small Multiples

A significant amount of the population has been exposed to high levels of fine particulate matter

These maps show the concentration of particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers or smaller (PM2.5) as measured from satellite

PM2.5

15 Nov 2019

Low

High

Port

Macquarie

Sydney

Canberra

Albury

PM2.5

10 Dec 2019

Port

Macquarie

Sydney

Canberra

Albury

PM2.5

31 Dec 2019

Port

Macquarie

Sydney

Canberra

Albury

PM2.5

6 Jan 2020

Port

Macquarie

Sydney

Canberra

Albury

Source: generated using Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service Information 2020. Graphic produced by: Jack Zhao / Small Multiples

Since August 2019, the air quality in Australian towns and cities has repeatedly exceeded hazardous levels

These charts show the maximum daily air quality index (AQI) reading for four locations. On the worst day in Canberra, the air quality reached 26 times the hazardous level

Port Macquarie

Sydney

5,000

5,000

19x

13x

Hazardous

Hazardous

15 Nov 2019

10 Dec 2019

AQI: 3,805

AQI: 2,552

200

200

Hazardous

Hazardous

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Canberra

Albury

5,000

5,000

26x

6x

Hazardous

Hazardous

1 Jan 2020

7 Jan 2020

AQI: 5,185

AQI: 1,101

200

200

Hazardous

Hazardous

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Aug 2019

Jan 2020

Source: NSW and ACT government data. Graphic produced by: Jack Zhao / Small Multiples

A significant amount of the population has been exposed to high levels of fine particulate matter

These maps show the concentration of particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers or smaller (PM2.5) as measured from satellite

PM2.5

PM2.5

15 Nov 2019

10 Dec 2019

Low

High

Port

Port Macquarie

Macquarie

Sydney

Sydney

Canberra

Canberra

Albury

Albury

Air quality index

Air quality index 24-hour average

10 Dec

15 Nov

>

>

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

No data

Very good

Good

Fair

Poor

Very poor

Hazardous

PM2.5

PM2.5

6 Jan 2020

31 Dec 2019

Port Macquarie

Port Macquarie

Sydney

Sydney

Canberra

Canberra

Albury

Albury

Albury

Air quality index

Air quality index

31 Dec

6 Jan

>

>

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Jan

Source: generated using Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service Information 2020. Graphic produced by: Jack Zhao / Small Multiples

The smoke that many Australians inhaled this summer contains fine particles, known as PM 2.5, that are especially damaging because they can enter the bloodstream. “It can affect every system in your body, which means you’re not only talking about respiratory-related and heart-related problems, people are linking it to diabetes [and] dementia,” Green says.

“Air pollution has recently been linked to autoimmune diseases. The causal relationship isn’t yet known, but if it contributes only a small amount to these diseases, the overall impact on a population would be large.”

But nobody knows the impact of medium- to long-term exposure to bushfire smoke. “We haven’t had this kind of exposure before,” Green says. “People are madly scrambling now to do the studies.”

Caldicott says his greatest concerns are for children and what the cumulative effects of a decade or more of this type of pollution might be.

He says the days of troubled breathing and no sunlight in Canberra have also caused psychological trauma for many that has manifested in anxiety, nervousness and anger.

Janagaraja says the city of Canberra was ill-prepared for the crisis.

Those most in need were often the least able to reach out for help: people with disabilities, people with chronic conditions, rough sleepers, or people confined to their homes. The Australian Capital Territory government took days to make masks available for its most vulnerable residents.

Janagaraja and other students working with the students’ association organised for more than 2,000 masks to be brought in from Sydney. There was a rushed panic as the students handed them out. But even the PM2 masks are not 100% effective.

“I remember being inside at Belconnen Westfield to try and get a bit of a reprieve from the air,” she says. “And the smoke alarm started going off [inside this] massive shopping centre.”

“I came home to see the same thing, smoke alarms just going off and people had to come outside and stand in the smoke where they were coughing 10 times worse.”

“It felt really frightening to have your eyes burning, feeling unable to breathe, inside a building. There was no safe or last resort to get respite that you might have in other weather conditions.

“There was nothing we could do, with the resources that we had, to make the situation any better.”

Thank you

This important story was made possible through the financial support of Guardian Australia readers. To the thousands who contributed to the frontline: thank you.

But the story doesn’t end here. To ensure Australia’s climate emergency continues to receive the in-depth, independent coverage it deserves, please consider supporting Guardian Australia with a monthly contribution.