According to the 2017 National Climate Risk Assessment, Australia is already adjusting to the current 1.3 degrees of climate change, but considerably more adaptation will be required. Both the warming that has already been locked in because of the lag time between emissions and warming and the warming that will still occur as a result of future emissions are included in this. Rebuilding flood-damaged bridges to withstand more harsh weather and planting mangroves to halt coastal erosion are only two examples of climate adaptation.
We and other climate adaption experts have been urging successive governments to develop a national strategy to direct Australia's response for well over ten years. Finally, it is here. Is it capable of the job?
The plan accomplishes a lot of things well, including outlining the government's thinking regarding upcoming initiatives and specifying which level of government is in charge. However, there are gaps. Future action plans are unclear and out of scale to the problem, and monitoring and tracking will not begin for a number of years. We will not be able to determine which initiatives are most beneficial unless we have efficient monitoring.
This plan should be viewed as an essential first step. The actual work now starts. Australia is a large country, and every industry will be impacted by climate change. This means that in order to contribute to overall action, the government must carefully decide where to use its funds and interact with others.
What is the plan?
The government's National Adaptation Plan, which was unveiled on Monday, is based on the long-delayed National Climate Risk assessment, which lists many of the growing risks that climate change poses to people, our activities, and the environment. The government is implying that adaptability is a crucial strategy for addressing these dangers by releasing both at once.
This is accurate. However, any adaptation has its limitations. Since the requirement for climate adaptation increases as emission reduction progresses more slowly, adaptation and emission reduction must be linked. The government will announce its 2035 emission reduction goals later this week.
According to the research, $3.6 billion has been spent since 2022 on climate adaptation-related measures, with an additional $9 billion anticipated by the end of the decade. This is not to claim that these policies and programs are specifically about climate adaptation; rather, the plan states that they can help Australians "adapt and enhance their resilience," particularly if climate adaptation elements are included. While the $200 million Urban waterways and Catchments program, which greens city waterways, has more indirect effects, the $1 billion Disaster Ready fund, for instance, has elements that directly address climate adaptation.
It is commonly acknowledged that investing in climate adaptation can yield significant returns. As an example, a 2022
Certain adaptations, such disaster early warning systems, nature-based floodwater slowing techniques, and the construction of climate-smart homes, can save a lot of money. Others might not be, though.
Rebuilding roads, bridges, and other infrastructure after a disaster to make it more resilient to the next one is one of the report's much-needed "betterment" themes.
In terms of agriculture, Australian farmers have so far done a good job of adjusting to the changing environment. However, according to the research, current adaption strategies are unlikely to be sufficient to handle the swift and significant changes that are anticipated. For the next generation of agricultural adaptation to be possible, we must make research and development investments.
The report's main goal is to identify strategies for directing private funding into climate adaptation initiatives, like incorporating adaptation into Australia's classification scheme for sustainable finance. This is good because, despite investors' growing interest in how they may fund adaptation, the majority of attention has been directed at reducing climate emissions.
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