The Climate Crucible

In March, the city of Sydney, Australia switched off the lights for one hour, kicking off a year-long campaign to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent. Credit: Ian Waldle/Getty

No country on Earth is experiencing the early signs of a warming world as keenly as the land down under. Recent data shows that temperatures in Australia are escalating faster than the global average: Of the country's 20 warmest years on record, 15 have occurred since 1980. The past 10 years have seen the lowest rainfall amounts in at least 100 years and perhaps since Europeans arrived on the continent. According to leading climatologists, the doubled severity of heat and drought suggests that Australia could be a "canary in the coal mine" of climate change, providing the world with a glimpse of what's to come.

While other nations are debating how best to tackle a somewhat nebulous future scenario of climate change, for Australia that future is today. And this country—with the biggest per capita carbon footprint of any developed nation in the world—is now emerging as an exemplar for sweeping environmental reform. Rising social concerns about water have created a greater awareness of global warming, which has, in turn, prompted a broad political response. Scientifically informed solutions to both the water and climate dilemmas are being rolled out for the first time on a national stage. As experts predict crises akin to Australia's "Big Dry" in many other parts of the world, how this nation responds will reveal much about our collective ability to reverse course on climate change.