Evidence
for the next horizon.

Heat is the biggest natural-cause killer in Australia.

Sydney is where the NSW Parliament's current data-centre inquiry makes the wider picture worth stitching together. A few of the numbers behind the case for that picture. Each one points at a layer we publish on the map.

• Heat mortality
  ~2×

  Heat already kills more Australians each year than every other natural hazard combined. The relative risk roughly doubles for every 5°C above the local mortality-minimum temperature (around 22°C across the Sydney area).

  Source: Coates et al. 2014 · Gasparrini et al. 2015

  “From 1844 to 2010, extreme heat events have been responsible for at least 5332 fatalities in Australia and, since 1900, 4555: more than the combined total of deaths from all other natural hazards.” Coates et al. 2014

  “The temperature percentile of minimum mortality varied from roughly the 60th percentile in tropical areas to about the 80–90th percentile in temperate regions.” Gasparrini et al. 2015, The Lancet

• Cluster build-out
  ~2 GW

  The Kemps Creek cluster alone has roughly 2 GW of disclosed data-centre capacity, 400 MW running today, another 1.57 GW announced or under construction. One cluster, the equivalent draw of roughly 4.5 million Sydney homes.

  Source: NSW Planning Portal · IPART 2025

  “Construction and operation of a data centre campus with a power capacity of 1 GW including six four-storey data centre buildings, 936 cooling units, 852 diesel back-up generators and 14,430 kl of diesel storage, internal roads and car parking.” NSW Planning Portal, Mamre Road Data Centre Campus, SSD-92743706

  “A typical household is assumed to: use 3,900 kWh of electricity each year (the average usage level in the Ausgrid distribution network).” IPART, Solar feed-in benchmark ranges 2025-26 (Final Report, May 2025)

• Vulnerability uplift
  +78%

  Cumberland LGA sits 78% above the Sydney mean on the V2 heat-vulnerability composite (0.558 vs basin mean 0.313), and shares boundaries with two of the largest western data-centre clusters in the corridor. The map joins the two.

  Independent evidence: WSROC · Sweltering Cities

  “Heat impacts are particularly pronounced in Western Sydney, due to a combination of climate change, local geography, and rapid urbanisation – where greening makes way for new housing developments.” WSROC, Turn Down the Heat strategy

  “We are concerned that suburbs such as Marsden Park, Eastern Creek, and Kemps Creek, which are already some of Sydney's hottest suburbs, will now house these major data centres.” Sweltering Cities, 21 April 2026