In an interview on Sky News’s Agenda program today, Sustainable Population Minister Tony Burke included the push to make Townsville a second capital of Queensland as an important part of dealing with Australia’s strong population growth (Burke interview transcript).

It’s good that we’re looking at alternatives for population growth outside of the capital cities.  However, further thought may need to be given to Townsville’s desirability as one of the cities targeted for population growth.  Townsville is already a very hot place to live in during Summer.  With climate change, it’s going to be even hotter, according to the Queensland Government’s ClimateQ report (p. 44):

By 2070, Townsville may have ten times the number of hot days over 35 °C (increasing from an average of four per year to an average of 40 per year by 2070)…

Climate change is the big unknown affecting population policy.  In choosing regional cities to promote, we need to bear in mind the risks that climate change poses to their livability and capacity to sustain higher numbers of people.  Townsville may well turn out to be a good choice, but we’ll need some hard-headed thinking about how it will fare under climate change before any long-lasting decisions are made.