The latest climate summary compiled by the Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology found the country’s average temperature in 2005 was 22.89 degrees Celsius, 1.09 degrees above the average, the highest in Australia since records began in 1910.
However Australia might not be alone, with predictions that 2005 was one of the warmest years on record for the entire globe.
Meteorologist Dr Blair Trewin said the rise in temperatures could be seen in tangible changes across Australia.
"We've seen things like the general retreat of the winter snow line. We've seen a marked decrease in the frequency of frost, especially in inland Queensland," Dr Trewin said.
“We've seen an increase in the number of extreme hot days," he said.
Global warming
The release of the climate summary findings has forced the Australian government to defend its action on climate change and global warming.
Federal Environment Minister Senator Ian Campbell said the government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on various environmental initiatives.
He told ABC radio the issue of climate change is alarming and reversing it is a global responsibility.
"These figures add to the weight of evidence that climate change is real and it's a problem that the world needs to work together to seek to solve," Senator Campbell said.
Government criticised
The new figures saw green groups and opposition parties lining up to attack the government for what they said was its failure to take direct action on climate change.
"The data released today by the Bureau of Meteorology adds to a huge body of scientific research that shows we no longer live in a natural climate," Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman Erwin Jackson said.
“While Australia gets hotter, our greenhouse pollution is spiralling out of control."
Opposition Labor's environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said Australia's greenhouse gas emissions had risen by 23.3 percent between 1990 and 2003.
"The heat is on the Howard government to start taking direct action to avoid dangerous climate change," Mr Albanese said.
Greenpeace energy campaigner Catherine Fitzpatrick said recent weather events have given Australia “a taste” of what to expect if global warming isn’t tackled.
"The extreme heat and bushfires of New Year's Day 2006 showed that it isn't going to be fun,” Ms Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
"If action isn't taken soon to avoid catastrophic climate change, Australians will have [Prime Minister] John Howard to blame for failing to act when he had the chance."
Greenpeace accused the federal government of being as beholden to the coal and aluminium industries as the Japanese government was to whaling companies, and with far more devastating impacts.
Kyoto Protocol
Australia and the United States are the only developed nations to refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol which aims to significantly cut the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Signatory countries pledged that by 2012, each would curb emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels.
Australia refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol because it doesn’t require developing nations to reduce emissions.
Instead, the government has committed Australia to a regional pact, the “Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate”, which will hold its inaugural meeting in Sydney on January 11-12.
Key ministers from Australia, the US, China, India, Japan and South Korea will launch a non-binding pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions first announced last July after months of secret negotiations.
Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the new initiative does not have enforcement standards or a specific timeframe.
The pact calls for the use of new technologies to cut back on emissions, and member countries say it will complement rather than undermine the Kyoto accord.
But the Australian Greens senator Christine Milne said the government should commit to real targets for reducing emissions at the Sydney meeting next week.
"Technology is critical to addressing climate change ... but my criticism is directed at the Australian government because it is putting all its eggs in the technology basket," she said.
"The Howard government is putting most of its money for technology into corporate welfare for the coal industry."