A group of Australia's leading climate scientists and doctors have signed a letter urging the Northern Territory government to permanently ban extracting natural gas from the ground through hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking.

The territory government's fracking inquiry panel is due to issue its final report next month.  After that the NT government will make its decision on whtehr to resume fracking.

Fracking carries with it the risk of permanently fouling ground water, as well as increases in earthquake activity.  But the scientists point out that releasing the gas would increase Australia's emissions by five percent.  And that runs against Australia's responsibilities agreed to in the Paris Climate Accord.

"The Paris Agreement aims to limit the rise in global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius," said Australian National University climate scientist Will Steffen to the ABC.  "When you work backwards from what it takes to meet that target, there is a limited amount of fossil fuel that we can burn, and already the existing mines and gas fields have more fuel than we can burn," he added, "We need to be reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 5 to 6 per cent a year, not increasing them."

The letter points out that the Northern Territory will be first to feel the negative impact of climate change.

"The NT is in the region likely to experience the most severe impacts of global warming, for example it is highly susceptible to temperature increases," the scientists wrote, "In Darwin the number of days over 35 degrees Celsius is expected to increase from 11 per year currently to up to 308 in 2070 if emissions are not reduced."

"Heatwaves have killed more Australians than any other extreme weather events."