Investors call for greater focus on adaptation projects in climate strategy
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More news: The federal government should elevate the role, importance and funding of climate adaptation projects in its climate change laws, the Investor Group on Climate Change has argued in response to the release of the National Climate Risk Assessment and Adaptation Plan.
The influential investor-led climate lobby group said climate adaptation was not given sufficient prominence in the Climate Change Act, and that the wording of the legislation should be amended to place it on equal footing with net zero targets.
The Act should also be tweaked to require the government to update the risk assessment or adaptation plans, in the same way it must review net zero targets every five years, the IGCC said in a statement.
The group also called on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to consider how the projects it invests in will face physical climate risks and benefit from adaptation strategies. It said Treasury could use its recently launched green Australian government bonds to finance adaptation projects.
Launching an adaptation project funding strategy could help Treasury attract private investment into these types of schemes, the IGCC added.
Examples include building seawalls to cope with rising sea levels, developing drought-resilient crops or incorporating green roofs, stormwater systems or rainfall harvesting into property developments.
First national climate risk analysis paints dire picture of economic impact
The news: Communities across Australia face more extreme heatwaves, sea level rises and supply chain disruptions that will reduce crop yields and threaten critical infrastructure, according to the government’s first comprehensive climate risk analysis.
The National Climate Risk Assessment identifies 56 nationally significant climate risks, including 10 priority hazards — events that may impact health or damage property, infrastructure and ecosystems.
The top five hazards are changes in temperatures, including extremes, drought, bushfires and air pollution, extratropical storms, and convective storms such as hailstorms. Tropical cyclones and riverine, coastal and flash flooding were also identified.
The numbers: The analysis modelled events and outcomes for all states and territories across 1.5°C, 2.0°C and 3.0°C warming scenarios, using historical, current (2011–2030), medium-term (to 2060) and long-term (to 2100) timeframes. The Australian Climate Service co-ordinated the exercise, drawing on input from the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geoscience Australia.
For each current climate risk, the analysis examined how likely hazard changes were, the probability of future risk changes and what mitigation and adaptation policies were in place. Adaptation data was gathered through a stocktake using a database of more than 670 publicly available adaptation plans across national, state and local governments.
Adaptation levels were assessed with expert advice to determine how effective these efforts were. These assessments were subtracted from the overall risk ratings to determine residual risk — the risk that remains after adaptation and mitigation efforts.
The context: The National Climate Risk Assessment and the National Adaptation Plan together form the first substantive body of work the Australian government has done to determine the future risks to people, the environment, the economy and infrastructure from rising global temperatures.
The NCRA report runs to more than 1,000 pages and was released to industry and stakeholder groups in a “first pass” consultation process in late 2024. While modelling and analysis were finalised in January, the government only released the report in full today.
What they said: “The report examines the impacts of climate change on obvious things that I think Australians well know and understand,” climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen said at a press conference following the report’s release.
“But also things that Australians might not have thought about so much — impacts on things like supply chains, on telecommunications. There isn’t an Australian community that isn’t impacted by climate change going forward, and there isn’t an Australian individual for whom those impacts won’t be real and material.
“It makes clear that the pattern of natural disasters that Australians are used to is not a reliable guide to the future. Some natural disasters will occur more frequently and in places and at times they haven’t previously been common. Natural disasters will increase most dramatically in Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and Tasmania.”
Bowen also said the analysis showed important ecosystems and species would be lost by the middle of the century, telecommunications assets were among the most exposed to extreme hazards, and oceans will become more acidic, producing marine heatwaves and tropical weather systems in temperate regions.
The federal government is expected to release its 2035 emissions target by the end of this week, following advice from the Climate Change Authority that it should be set between 65% and 75% below 2005 levels.
The sources: National Climate Risk Assessment and National Adaptation Report, Chris Bowen media conference transcript, Investor Group on Climate Change
