Australia Planning to Adapt to Climate Change Impacts

26 July 2005

The Australian Government has released a report published earlier this year that calls for the beginning of planning to adapt to the inevitable impact of climate change.

Minister for the Environment and Heritage Senator Ian Campbell called the report an important part of the process in responding to climate change, and said that the next step was to begin adaptation planning in key sectors and regions.

From the report:

Over the past decade or more the national and international focus has predominantly been on strategies to reduce greenhouse emissions. There has been, in many countries and in the international negotiations on climate change, an unwillingness to devote serious attention to adaptation strategies.

Some level of climate change is inevitable irrespective of emission reduction strategies. This inevitability is reflected in the conclusion of the IPCC in their 2001 Assessment Report that adaptation is now a necessary strategy to complement emission mitigation efforts.

[...]An adaptation strategy will aim to increase the resilience of human and natural systems to possible changes in climate conditions where this is likely to be feasible and cost effective, and takes account of the social dimensions of distributing losses. It is a framework for managing future climate risk. It offers the potential of reducing future economic, social, and environmental costs as well as protecting life.

An adaptation strategy, to be effective, must result in climate risk being considered as a normal part of decision-making, allowing governments, businesses and individuals to reflect their risk preferences just as they would for other risk assessments. In this sense, adaptation strategies will fail if they continue in the long run to be seen in a ‘silo’ separate from other dimensions of strategic planning and risk management.

The US and Australia have refused to sign the Kyoto protocol designed to slow the emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

However, Australia, the US, China, India and South Korea reportedly have joined in a secret regional pact on greenhouse emissions to replace the Kyoto protocol.

The alliance, which is yet to be announced, will bring together nations that together account for more than 40 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

To be known as the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, the grouping will aim to use the latest technologies to limit emissions and to make sure the technologies are available in the areas and industries that need them most.

The US initiative has been discussed between the five nations for five months and is viewed as a practical attempt to rein in greenhouse emissions without harming development or economic growth in the region. (The Australian)

Of 17 initiatives listed by the Australian government as measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, only one deals directly with the transportation sector: an A$33.6 million (US$25.5 million) Alternative Fuels Conversion Program that funds up to 50% of the incremental cost of the purchase, conversion or fuel systems upgrade of buses and commercial vehicles over 3.5 ton gross vehicle mass to operate on CNG or LPG.

Resources:

• Climate Change Risk and Vulnerability: Promoting an efficient adaptation response in Australia