National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy
Transcript Of National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy
2015
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015
© Commonwealth of Australia 2015 Copyright Notice With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence (CC BY 3.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/deed.en). This work must be attributed as: “Commonwealth of Australia, ‘National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy’.” References and endnotes for the National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy are available from the Department of the Environment website at www.environment.gov.au.
Acknowledgement of traditional owners and country
The Australian Government acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures and to their elders both past and present. As this Strategy shares knowledge, teaching, learning and research practices, we also pay respect to the knowledge and traditions of this country’s traditional owners and custodians.
Contents
About this Strategy
5
A vision for climate resilience in Australia
6
Principles of effective resilience and adaptation
8
The climate change challenge
10
Key elements of climate resilience
13
Foundations of our approach
17
Australian resilience: risks, actions and future challenges
23
Coasts27
Cities and the built environment
34
Agriculture, forestry and fisheries
40
Water resources
45
Natural ecosystems
51
Health and wellbeing
58
Disaster risk management
63
A resilient and secure region
71
We act together to support prosperity and wellbeing in Australia and beyond by building the resilience of
communities, the economy and the environment to a variable and changing climate.
4
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015
About this Strategy
The Australian Government has developed this National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy to articulate how Australia is managing the risks of a variable and changing climate. The Strategy affirms a set of principles to guide effective adaptation practice and resilience building, looks at leading practice nationally, and considers areas for future review, consultation and action.
In 2007, the Council of Australian Governments agreed on a National Climate Change Adaptation Framework. This Framework established priorities for action and a significant evidence base, national climate change science and adaptation research capacity and institutions, and a wide range of resilience-building initiatives. The Framework continues to anchor and guide resilience action by Australian governments.
Effective responses to climate change are contextspecific, and often addressed best at the local and regional levels. The Australian Government works to ensure that its own actions and policies
do not undermine the incentives for, or capacity of, the private sector and the states and territories to manage risk. To this end, the Strategy highlights adaptation action by both public and private individuals and organisations across the Australian community, as well as in Asia and the Pacific. Australia is one of the developed countries most vulnerable to climate change and we are situated within a region with many highly vulnerable neighbours. Maintaining resilience in a changing climate requires the informed engagement of people and institutions at all levels and across our region.
Climate change poses significant risks to our economies, communities and the natural environment. That said, the Australian environment has always required us to be innovative in managing and adjusting to climate extremes, variability and events. The Strategy is another step in that journey. It highlights how Australia is employing ingenuity and sound climate risk management to meet the climate challenges of the future.
About this Strategy
5
A vision for climate resilience in Australia
Our climate is changing and this will affect most of us in some way during our lifetimes. A climate-resilient Australia is one where:
We act together to support prosperity and wellbeing in Australia and beyond by building the resilience of communities, the economy and the environment to a variable and changing climate.
The Australian Government maintains a strong, flexible economy and well-targeted safety net to ensure that climate change does not disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, effective natural resource management across land, water, marine and coral reef systems, and considers the economy-wide implications of actions determined at local and regional levels. It must look to the security of its assets, investments and infrastructure, and ensure that it delivers critical government services without interruption. Beyond our borders, Australia helps developing countries, particularly in Asia and the Pacific, with effective disaster risk management, climate change science, adaptation planning and capacity building.
Governments, business, communities and individuals have an important role to play in building our resilience to climate change (© Tony McDonough / Raw Image)
Governments at all levels, businesses, communities and individuals have complementary but different roles. Individuals and businesses, for example, are generally best placed to manage the climate risks associated with their homes and commercial assets.
Governments—on behalf of the community—are responsible for managing risks to public goods and assets (including the environment), government service delivery, and creating the institutional, market and regulatory environment that supports and promotes private resilience and action.
One of the most important roles of governments in adaptation is ensuring that others within society can make informed decisions and adjust their behaviour in response to climate risks, by providing authoritative climate information. The Australian Government plays a major part in providing this climate science and information.
As the effects of climate change vary across different parts of Australia, the information and actions required will also vary across the nation. State and territory governments have the leading role in adaptation actions, primarily through their planning laws and investments in public infrastructure.
State and territory governments focus on ensuring appropriate regulatory and market frameworks are in place, providing accurate and regionally appropriate information and delivering an adaptation response in those areas of policy and regulation within their jurisdiction. This includes key areas of service delivery and infrastructure, such as emergency services, environmental protection, planning and transport. For example, building regulations updated since the 1980s have improved disaster resilience, resulting in less building damage from tropical cyclones in northern Australia.1
Local governments are on the frontline in dealing with the impacts of climate change. They have an essential role to play in ensuring that particular local circumstances are adequately considered in the overall adaptation response and in involving the local community directly in efforts to facilitate effective change. They are well positioned to
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National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015
inform state and federal governments about the on-the-ground needs of local and regional communities, to communicate directly with those communities, and to respond to local changes.
There is broad agreement between Australian jurisdictions on respective adaptation roles and responsibilities, and we continue to work together to understand the cost–benefits, optimal timing and appropriate scale for adaptation actions.
Climate change as a business risk and
an opportunity
Building resilience to the physical impacts of climate change and extreme weather events is vital for the long-term sustainable growth of a business. As the interface between aviation and ground transport, airports have a key role to play in climate change. Adelaide Airport is the international and domestic aviation gateway to South Australia for 7.8 million passengers a year (2014-15).
Adelaide Airport Ltd (AAL) is the airport lessee company operating both Adelaide Airport and Parafield Airports. As an owner of significant infrastructure AAL recognises its responsibility to ensure that its assets are designed and maintained to withstand future climatic conditions, so that the organisation can continue to deliver excellence in service into the future.
AAL sees climate change as both a business risk and an opportunity for sustainable development. It can affect airport infrastructure and operations in a variety of ways from physical and service impacts to financial implications. During an extreme weather event, for example, an airport may provide local shelter and support for aviation in disaster relief. When airports in one state or country deal with a climate risk, many other airports, both nationally and globally, are affected.
In its first climate change adaptation plan, due for release shortly, AAL has used the latest available climate science and projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Australian Government’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). It has identified key climate risks and, where the existing comprehensive controls and operational plans required additional mitigation actions, these have been specified and will be integrated into key business documents and guidance. For example, treatments for heat-related risks include integration of appropriate actions within various asset management plans.
Consultation on the plan has taken place with all levels of government. As critical infrastructure for the state, Adelaide Airport has consulted with the South Australian Government on this Plan and has taken part in the state-wide and regional consultation to help inform the development of a new Climate Change Strategy for South Australia.
Emissions reduction has been ongoing for many years and Adelaide Airport is accredited to Level 3 of Airports Council International’s Airport Carbon Accreditation Scheme. AAL also considers tackling climate change impacts early to be a good business decision from the perspectives of risk management, meeting policy requirements and ensuring the resilience of its assets.
A vision for climate resilience in Australia
7
Principles of effective resilience and adaptation
As we pursue our vision of a climate-resilient Australia, we base our action on principles that underpin resilience and adaptation.
SHARED RESPONSIBILITY Governments at all levels, businesses, communities and individuals each have different but complementary and important roles to play in managing climate risks.
FACTORING CLIMATE RISKS INTO DECISION MAKING We achieve climate resilience when short, medium and long-term decision making considers current climate risks and a changing climate. Consideration of climate risk means that decisions are informed by an understanding of current costs and benefits as well as risks and opportunities that may arise, and that they are made without passing risks on to future Australians.
We take measures that deal with the risks that are unacceptable in the current climate, for example, our current vulnerability to inland flooding, bushfires and drought in some regions. We take measures that yield benefits even without further climate change, like enhancing energy efficiency or replanting riparian vegetation along creeks. In addition, we consider climate change when making decisions with long-term consequences, such as in planning new suburbs or making decisions about long-lived infrastructure like ports.
AN EVIDENCE-BASED, RISK MANAGEMENT APPROACH We ensure our decisions are sound by applying leading physical, economic and social science in decision making, but which do not defer adaptation planning or action because of a lack of perfect information about the future. We use risk management tools and approaches, and
Our coastal zones have important economic, social and environmental characteristics and frequently overlapping governance arrangements (© Phalinn Ooi, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
8
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015
consider both the magnitude and likelihood of climate risks and capacity to respond to those risks. Continued investment in the science, technology and innovation, adaptation information and skills, helps us to manage climate risks and find emerging opportunities.
HELPING THE VULNERABLE We support those who may be vulnerable to climate-related impacts, or who have limited capacity to respond. We do this through our policy design choices and the social welfare system.
COLLABORATIVE, VALUES-BASED CHOICES We recognise that different circumstances and locations require different approaches to adaptation. There is no single approach to reducing risks that will be appropriate across all settings.
To identify action that will be appropriate and effective, decision makers should seek to understand and respect the knowledge and experience of those affected, and actively involve them in decision-making processes whenever possible. Innovative and effective adaptation relies on governments, businesses and individuals understanding the wider social and economic context in which they make important decisions.
Indigenous, local and traditional knowledge systems and practices, including Indigenous peoples’ views of community and environment, are an important resource for adapting to climate change. For example, fire is a significant part of Indigenous cultures, and skilful burning of landscapes by Indigenous peoples has informed early season bushfire management, reducing the damage caused by large intense bushfires.
REVISITING DECISIONS AND OUTCOMES OVER TIME The climate is a dynamic system and the risks it poses will change over time, as will community views, values, knowledge, resources and capacity. Adaptive management embeds this dynamism by taking changing circumstances or improved science into account. Regularly reassessing actions and incorporating flexibility into longer-term decisions will help ensure choices remain appropriate, and we capture emerging opportunities. We can engage widely across institutions and communities to encourage the social learning that supports resilience; and foster the trans-disciplinary skills we will need to manage complexity across temporal and spatial scales.
Principles of effective resilience and adaptation
9
The climate change challenge
Some global warming has already occurred— Australia has warmed by 0.9°C, mostly since 19502—and we have experienced the effects of this warming, including:
XX a reduction in cool season rainfall and runoff in southern areas, and an increase in summer rainfall in the north
XX southern and eastern Australia is projected to experience more extreme fire-related weather (high confidence)
XX the time in drought is projected to increase over southern Australia (high confidence), with a greater frequency of extreme droughts (medium confidence)
XX increased frequency of hot, compared to cold, days
XX increases in extreme weather including longer and more severe heatwaves, increased bushfire weather, increased intensity of extreme rainfall events
XX detectable rises in sea level regionally and globally.
Some further warming is unavoidable, locked into the climate system due to past greenhouse gas emissions, even if global emissions stabilised immediately. Climate projections released by Australia’s CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology in 2015 indicate that under all future emissions scenarios:
XX average temperatures will continue to increase (very high confidence in this outcome) and Australia will experience more heat extremes (very high confidence) and fewer frosty days (high confidence)
XX extreme rainfall events are likely to become more intense (high confidence)
XX the number of tropical cyclones is projected to become less frequent with a greater proportion of high intensity storms (medium confidence) and a greater proportion extending beyond the southern latitude of 25 degrees (low confidence)
XX sea levels will continue to rise throughout the 21st century (very high confidence), with increased frequency of storm surge events
XX oceans around Australia will warm and become more acidic (very high confidence).
The world has committed to limit global average warming to below 2°C. There is concerted international action towards this goal, but even a 2°C change requires Australia and the region to manage substantial adaptation challenges. This underscores the importance of pursuing actions to both reduce emissions and build resilience and adaptive capacity—they are both essential and complementary responses to climate change.
Effective climate policy aimed at reducing the risks of climate change to natural and human systems involves a portfolio of diverse adaptation and mitigation actions.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change3
Effective emissions reductions efforts and climate change adaptation together will bring important benefits: social, environmental and economic impacts will be lower; new opportunities can be fully exploited; and fresh thinking about climate risks will stimulate innovation in other fields. According to recent analysis by the CSIRO, ecological pressures can be reversed while the population grows and living standards improve. In the right circumstances, economic and environmental outcomes can be decoupled.4
10
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015
2015
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015
© Commonwealth of Australia 2015 Copyright Notice With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence (CC BY 3.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/deed.en). This work must be attributed as: “Commonwealth of Australia, ‘National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy’.” References and endnotes for the National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy are available from the Department of the Environment website at www.environment.gov.au.
Acknowledgement of traditional owners and country
The Australian Government acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures and to their elders both past and present. As this Strategy shares knowledge, teaching, learning and research practices, we also pay respect to the knowledge and traditions of this country’s traditional owners and custodians.
Contents
About this Strategy
5
A vision for climate resilience in Australia
6
Principles of effective resilience and adaptation
8
The climate change challenge
10
Key elements of climate resilience
13
Foundations of our approach
17
Australian resilience: risks, actions and future challenges
23
Coasts27
Cities and the built environment
34
Agriculture, forestry and fisheries
40
Water resources
45
Natural ecosystems
51
Health and wellbeing
58
Disaster risk management
63
A resilient and secure region
71
We act together to support prosperity and wellbeing in Australia and beyond by building the resilience of
communities, the economy and the environment to a variable and changing climate.
4
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015
About this Strategy
The Australian Government has developed this National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy to articulate how Australia is managing the risks of a variable and changing climate. The Strategy affirms a set of principles to guide effective adaptation practice and resilience building, looks at leading practice nationally, and considers areas for future review, consultation and action.
In 2007, the Council of Australian Governments agreed on a National Climate Change Adaptation Framework. This Framework established priorities for action and a significant evidence base, national climate change science and adaptation research capacity and institutions, and a wide range of resilience-building initiatives. The Framework continues to anchor and guide resilience action by Australian governments.
Effective responses to climate change are contextspecific, and often addressed best at the local and regional levels. The Australian Government works to ensure that its own actions and policies
do not undermine the incentives for, or capacity of, the private sector and the states and territories to manage risk. To this end, the Strategy highlights adaptation action by both public and private individuals and organisations across the Australian community, as well as in Asia and the Pacific. Australia is one of the developed countries most vulnerable to climate change and we are situated within a region with many highly vulnerable neighbours. Maintaining resilience in a changing climate requires the informed engagement of people and institutions at all levels and across our region.
Climate change poses significant risks to our economies, communities and the natural environment. That said, the Australian environment has always required us to be innovative in managing and adjusting to climate extremes, variability and events. The Strategy is another step in that journey. It highlights how Australia is employing ingenuity and sound climate risk management to meet the climate challenges of the future.
About this Strategy
5
A vision for climate resilience in Australia
Our climate is changing and this will affect most of us in some way during our lifetimes. A climate-resilient Australia is one where:
We act together to support prosperity and wellbeing in Australia and beyond by building the resilience of communities, the economy and the environment to a variable and changing climate.
The Australian Government maintains a strong, flexible economy and well-targeted safety net to ensure that climate change does not disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, effective natural resource management across land, water, marine and coral reef systems, and considers the economy-wide implications of actions determined at local and regional levels. It must look to the security of its assets, investments and infrastructure, and ensure that it delivers critical government services without interruption. Beyond our borders, Australia helps developing countries, particularly in Asia and the Pacific, with effective disaster risk management, climate change science, adaptation planning and capacity building.
Governments, business, communities and individuals have an important role to play in building our resilience to climate change (© Tony McDonough / Raw Image)
Governments at all levels, businesses, communities and individuals have complementary but different roles. Individuals and businesses, for example, are generally best placed to manage the climate risks associated with their homes and commercial assets.
Governments—on behalf of the community—are responsible for managing risks to public goods and assets (including the environment), government service delivery, and creating the institutional, market and regulatory environment that supports and promotes private resilience and action.
One of the most important roles of governments in adaptation is ensuring that others within society can make informed decisions and adjust their behaviour in response to climate risks, by providing authoritative climate information. The Australian Government plays a major part in providing this climate science and information.
As the effects of climate change vary across different parts of Australia, the information and actions required will also vary across the nation. State and territory governments have the leading role in adaptation actions, primarily through their planning laws and investments in public infrastructure.
State and territory governments focus on ensuring appropriate regulatory and market frameworks are in place, providing accurate and regionally appropriate information and delivering an adaptation response in those areas of policy and regulation within their jurisdiction. This includes key areas of service delivery and infrastructure, such as emergency services, environmental protection, planning and transport. For example, building regulations updated since the 1980s have improved disaster resilience, resulting in less building damage from tropical cyclones in northern Australia.1
Local governments are on the frontline in dealing with the impacts of climate change. They have an essential role to play in ensuring that particular local circumstances are adequately considered in the overall adaptation response and in involving the local community directly in efforts to facilitate effective change. They are well positioned to
6
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015
inform state and federal governments about the on-the-ground needs of local and regional communities, to communicate directly with those communities, and to respond to local changes.
There is broad agreement between Australian jurisdictions on respective adaptation roles and responsibilities, and we continue to work together to understand the cost–benefits, optimal timing and appropriate scale for adaptation actions.
Climate change as a business risk and
an opportunity
Building resilience to the physical impacts of climate change and extreme weather events is vital for the long-term sustainable growth of a business. As the interface between aviation and ground transport, airports have a key role to play in climate change. Adelaide Airport is the international and domestic aviation gateway to South Australia for 7.8 million passengers a year (2014-15).
Adelaide Airport Ltd (AAL) is the airport lessee company operating both Adelaide Airport and Parafield Airports. As an owner of significant infrastructure AAL recognises its responsibility to ensure that its assets are designed and maintained to withstand future climatic conditions, so that the organisation can continue to deliver excellence in service into the future.
AAL sees climate change as both a business risk and an opportunity for sustainable development. It can affect airport infrastructure and operations in a variety of ways from physical and service impacts to financial implications. During an extreme weather event, for example, an airport may provide local shelter and support for aviation in disaster relief. When airports in one state or country deal with a climate risk, many other airports, both nationally and globally, are affected.
In its first climate change adaptation plan, due for release shortly, AAL has used the latest available climate science and projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Australian Government’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). It has identified key climate risks and, where the existing comprehensive controls and operational plans required additional mitigation actions, these have been specified and will be integrated into key business documents and guidance. For example, treatments for heat-related risks include integration of appropriate actions within various asset management plans.
Consultation on the plan has taken place with all levels of government. As critical infrastructure for the state, Adelaide Airport has consulted with the South Australian Government on this Plan and has taken part in the state-wide and regional consultation to help inform the development of a new Climate Change Strategy for South Australia.
Emissions reduction has been ongoing for many years and Adelaide Airport is accredited to Level 3 of Airports Council International’s Airport Carbon Accreditation Scheme. AAL also considers tackling climate change impacts early to be a good business decision from the perspectives of risk management, meeting policy requirements and ensuring the resilience of its assets.
A vision for climate resilience in Australia
7
Principles of effective resilience and adaptation
As we pursue our vision of a climate-resilient Australia, we base our action on principles that underpin resilience and adaptation.
SHARED RESPONSIBILITY Governments at all levels, businesses, communities and individuals each have different but complementary and important roles to play in managing climate risks.
FACTORING CLIMATE RISKS INTO DECISION MAKING We achieve climate resilience when short, medium and long-term decision making considers current climate risks and a changing climate. Consideration of climate risk means that decisions are informed by an understanding of current costs and benefits as well as risks and opportunities that may arise, and that they are made without passing risks on to future Australians.
We take measures that deal with the risks that are unacceptable in the current climate, for example, our current vulnerability to inland flooding, bushfires and drought in some regions. We take measures that yield benefits even without further climate change, like enhancing energy efficiency or replanting riparian vegetation along creeks. In addition, we consider climate change when making decisions with long-term consequences, such as in planning new suburbs or making decisions about long-lived infrastructure like ports.
AN EVIDENCE-BASED, RISK MANAGEMENT APPROACH We ensure our decisions are sound by applying leading physical, economic and social science in decision making, but which do not defer adaptation planning or action because of a lack of perfect information about the future. We use risk management tools and approaches, and
Our coastal zones have important economic, social and environmental characteristics and frequently overlapping governance arrangements (© Phalinn Ooi, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
8
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015
consider both the magnitude and likelihood of climate risks and capacity to respond to those risks. Continued investment in the science, technology and innovation, adaptation information and skills, helps us to manage climate risks and find emerging opportunities.
HELPING THE VULNERABLE We support those who may be vulnerable to climate-related impacts, or who have limited capacity to respond. We do this through our policy design choices and the social welfare system.
COLLABORATIVE, VALUES-BASED CHOICES We recognise that different circumstances and locations require different approaches to adaptation. There is no single approach to reducing risks that will be appropriate across all settings.
To identify action that will be appropriate and effective, decision makers should seek to understand and respect the knowledge and experience of those affected, and actively involve them in decision-making processes whenever possible. Innovative and effective adaptation relies on governments, businesses and individuals understanding the wider social and economic context in which they make important decisions.
Indigenous, local and traditional knowledge systems and practices, including Indigenous peoples’ views of community and environment, are an important resource for adapting to climate change. For example, fire is a significant part of Indigenous cultures, and skilful burning of landscapes by Indigenous peoples has informed early season bushfire management, reducing the damage caused by large intense bushfires.
REVISITING DECISIONS AND OUTCOMES OVER TIME The climate is a dynamic system and the risks it poses will change over time, as will community views, values, knowledge, resources and capacity. Adaptive management embeds this dynamism by taking changing circumstances or improved science into account. Regularly reassessing actions and incorporating flexibility into longer-term decisions will help ensure choices remain appropriate, and we capture emerging opportunities. We can engage widely across institutions and communities to encourage the social learning that supports resilience; and foster the trans-disciplinary skills we will need to manage complexity across temporal and spatial scales.
Principles of effective resilience and adaptation
9
The climate change challenge
Some global warming has already occurred— Australia has warmed by 0.9°C, mostly since 19502—and we have experienced the effects of this warming, including:
XX a reduction in cool season rainfall and runoff in southern areas, and an increase in summer rainfall in the north
XX southern and eastern Australia is projected to experience more extreme fire-related weather (high confidence)
XX the time in drought is projected to increase over southern Australia (high confidence), with a greater frequency of extreme droughts (medium confidence)
XX increased frequency of hot, compared to cold, days
XX increases in extreme weather including longer and more severe heatwaves, increased bushfire weather, increased intensity of extreme rainfall events
XX detectable rises in sea level regionally and globally.
Some further warming is unavoidable, locked into the climate system due to past greenhouse gas emissions, even if global emissions stabilised immediately. Climate projections released by Australia’s CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology in 2015 indicate that under all future emissions scenarios:
XX average temperatures will continue to increase (very high confidence in this outcome) and Australia will experience more heat extremes (very high confidence) and fewer frosty days (high confidence)
XX extreme rainfall events are likely to become more intense (high confidence)
XX the number of tropical cyclones is projected to become less frequent with a greater proportion of high intensity storms (medium confidence) and a greater proportion extending beyond the southern latitude of 25 degrees (low confidence)
XX sea levels will continue to rise throughout the 21st century (very high confidence), with increased frequency of storm surge events
XX oceans around Australia will warm and become more acidic (very high confidence).
The world has committed to limit global average warming to below 2°C. There is concerted international action towards this goal, but even a 2°C change requires Australia and the region to manage substantial adaptation challenges. This underscores the importance of pursuing actions to both reduce emissions and build resilience and adaptive capacity—they are both essential and complementary responses to climate change.
Effective climate policy aimed at reducing the risks of climate change to natural and human systems involves a portfolio of diverse adaptation and mitigation actions.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change3
Effective emissions reductions efforts and climate change adaptation together will bring important benefits: social, environmental and economic impacts will be lower; new opportunities can be fully exploited; and fresh thinking about climate risks will stimulate innovation in other fields. According to recent analysis by the CSIRO, ecological pressures can be reversed while the population grows and living standards improve. In the right circumstances, economic and environmental outcomes can be decoupled.4
10
National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2015