Are we ready? Adapting to unavoidable climate change
Australia’s civic and political leaders now have information at their fingertips to understand the views, activities and concerns of people working on the front line of adapting Australia to climate change.
On Tuesday the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) will release the first five in a series of concise and to-the-point briefing papers in Canberra.
The Climate Adaptation Policy Guidance Briefs are based on the experiences of people working in areas already impacted by climate change – in emergency management, agriculture, water resources and infrastructure. They bring these experiences together with key scientific data to help decision-makers better understand the critical issues.
“As part of NCCARF’s Adaptation Conversation 2012-13, we listened to business and industry leaders, local government and farmers to develop guidance for Australian policy makers on adapting to current and future climate impacts,” director Professor Jean Palutikof
says.
“The scientific evidence suggests strongly that there will be unavoidable climate change impacts even though our mitigation efforts can reduce some of these.“
“As Australia’s climate changes in increasingly severe ways over the coming decades we need to be sure that we are ready,” Professor Palutikof says.
Many local councils are actively preparing for future risks but changing policy cycles, short-term funding and inconsistency between jurisdictions and tiers of government are all barriers to successful adaptation.