National Adaptation Initiatives: Challenges and Approaches

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National Adaptation Initiatives Challenges and
Approaches

• Ms Jo Mummery
• Assistant Secretary
• Land Management and Science Branch
• IOCI Living With Our Changing Climate Seminar
• 15-17 August 2005

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Premise

• Climate change can no longer be considered as
  some secondary factor superimposed on other more
  important considerations determining economic,
  social, and resource development in Australia
• Climate change must now be considered as a
  fundamental part of the core operating
  environment affecting planning for most aspects
  of land management and development

Herein lies the Challenge of Adaptation
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The Challenge of Adaptation

• Global climate change science is robust, and
  uncertainty associated with timing, nature and
  quantum of change
• eg little known about likelihood of abrupt or
  step-wise change
• Regional climate change impacts still poorly
  specified
• regional downscaling improving
• many uncertainties still with effects on extreme
  events
• Regional sectoral/integrated impacts even more
  poorly known
• little known about threshold effects
• paucity of research on interactive effects
• Governments, industries and communities need
  targeted information about system resilience
  responsiveness
• do we know enough to act?
• how are we to design and support research to
  address policy priorities help us make informed
  decisions?

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Outline of Presentation

• Australian Governments Initiatives
• Australian Climate Change Science Programme
• National Climate Change Adaptation Programme
• Greenhouse Action in Rural Australia
• National Adaptation Framework
• Concluding Remarks

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Australian Climate Change Science Programme

• Govt support, recognising strategic priority of
  research agenda
• Partnership with CSIRO and BoM, commenced 1989
• Targeted programme 2004-08
• Better understand drivers of Australias climate
  and how they may change (oceanic carbon uptake
  change, aerosols, terrestrial biosphere carbon
  flux)
• Maintain world class modelling capacity (AR4,
  ACCESS)
• Investigate nature of change (next generation
  projections, separate from variability, palaeo
  science, extremes)
• Support Australias leadership in Sthn Hem
  climate science (international collaboration)
• Contribute to delivery of the National Research
  Priorities
• Build capacity to support impact assessments
• Communication (Hot Topics, carbon cycle, science
  status)

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The Science is Improving

• Climate modelling
• more comprehensive, reduced uncertainty
• - Australian leadership in Sthn Ocean
  (overturning circulation, Antarctic bottom water
  formation, sink strength)
• Expanding base of high precision measurements
• Ice cores, sea level rise, atmospheric CO2, data
  rehab, flux
• Australian systems different
• Probabilistic projections
• Disentangle climate variability and climate
  change
• - e.g. rainfall decline in SW WA
• Detection Attribution
• - confidence in detection of greenhouse warming
• - techniques much improved
• Debate peer review enhances rigour confidence

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Unprecedented CO2 Change in History of Our
Species
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Science Supporting Adaptation

• Building a world class climate modelling
  capacity
• ENSO, Southern Ocean, Indian Ocean Dipole,
  sea-ice
• Interactive carbon-climate
• Dynamic vegetation
• A new generation of regional climate projections
• Downscaling techniques
• Climate variability and extreme events
• Understanding how the drivers of natural
  variability may change under enhanced greenhouse
  conditions e.g. El Niño events
• The likelihood of increased frequency and
  intensity of extreme climate events drought,
  floods, tropical cyclones, storm surge, fire
• The terrestrial carbon cycle
• How will Australias biosphere respond
  including the role of land use change and
  terrestrial carbon sinks, and positive feedbacks

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Climate change, climate variability extreme
events

• Extreme events - effect of
• climate change on frequency
• intensity
• Extreme rainfall and wind events
• Tropical cyclones
• Hail and severe storms
• Sea level events changes to storm surge
  events
• Drought past and future changes in drought
• Climate change and climate variability -
  Examining linkages e.g. changes in monsoon
  onset and break periods

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Modelled Inundation of Cairns

• - Vulnerable to ?cyclones and storm surges
  significant damage to infrastructure and
  essential services
• Figure below - storm surge impact on Cairns with
  doubling of atmospheric CO2

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Australian Government Initiatives -
Australian Climate Change Science
Programme- National Climate Change Adaptation
Programme- Greenhouse Action in
Regional Australia Programme
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National Climate Change Adaptation Programme
Helping to prepare governments, industries and
communities for the unavoidable consequences of
climate change.
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NCCAPKey Objectives

• Advise Australian Government on policy issues
  related to climate change impacts and adaptation,
  including risks and opportunities
• Build national capacity to support the
  development of effective and targeted adaptation
  strategies
• Engage key stakeholders and provide targeted and
  scale-relevant information and tools to industry
  sectors and regions
• Facilitate recognition of climate change as part
  of core operating environment for policy and
  decision making in vulnerable sectors/regions
• Close links with the Australian Climate Change
  Science Program.

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Risk and Vulnerability Report

• Sectors requiring urgent attention
• agriculture
• water supply
• settlements and emergency services
• energy supply and distribution
• biodiversity
• Sectors requiring some attention
• tourism, health, fisheries and forestry
• Regions of high vulnerability
• SW-WA, Great Barrier Reef, SE Australia, coastal
  and alpine regions

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Policy advice stream

• Identify risks and opportunities for Australia
  arising from climate change and provide advice to
  Govt on
• National risk and vulnerability assessment
• Costs of climate change impacts/effects on
  economy and markets
• Implications for standard setting
• Assess national demographic and development
  patterns and their influence on Australias
  vulnerability
• Implications for long-lived assets/infrastructure
  and the insurance industry
• Adaptation capacity and priorities
• Work in partnership to incorporate climate change
  risk assessment, impacts and adaptation into key
  Govt policies and programs

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Building capacity stream

• Engaging stakeholders in vulnerable sectors and
  regions to promote awareness of
• climate change impacts
• the need to adapt
• the advantages of early adaptation
• the tools available to assist with adaptation
  planning
• Developing a suite of tools to assist
  stakeholders with adaptation planning
• Risk management guidelines
• Spatial information on impacts accessible on web
• Enhanced sectoral modelling tools eg BIOCLIM, cc
  hydrological modelling capacities
• Targeted tools for eg planners, local government
• Guidance to incorporate climate change into
  existing mechanisms for vulnerable sectors
• Design standards and building codes

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Research partnership stream

• Commissioning scoping studies and research in
  partnership with other organisations to assess
  vulnerability and adaptation options for sectors
• Current work on energy infrastructure, vulnerable
  cities, marine systems and extreme events
• Planned work on water resources, agriculture
• Integrated assessments to provide a range of
  adaptation options relevant to regions
• Current discussions on major projects in Cairns
  and GBR, SE Australia, SW WA regions
• Future work on urban development and coastal
  vulnerability assessment
• Methods development and piloting

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Climate Change Wheat Yield in WA

• Partnership between the Dept of Ag WA and the
  AGO. Aims to identify regional vulnerabilities of
  different agricultural industries in the SW of WA
• Some preliminary results from this project
  indicate that
• Wheat yield is likely to change over a 50 year
  scenario to 2050
• With main production areas moving towards the
  coast and above the 400mm rainfall isohyet

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SW-WA joint adaptation project

• WA Govt committed to working with partners
  including AGO to progress integrated assessment
  of impacts of climate change and adaptation
  options in south-west
• First phase to explore effectiveness of
  management approaches and decisions in region in
  response to rainfall decline
• Consultations and workshops
• Second phase to be developed

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Australian Government Initiatives -
Australian Climate Change Science
Programme- National Climate Change Adaptation
Programme- Greenhouse Action in
Regional Australia Programme
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Maintaining the Competitive Edge

• Climate change and its impacts intersect with
  different parts of industry and society
  differently
• The challenge is to maintain (or improve) the
  competitive edge at each intersection point i.e.
  

Build Adaptive Capacity Across Industry and
Society
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Building Adaptive Capacity
International Supply and Demand
Climate Change
Agro Ecological Zoning
Annual Weather Patterns
There are many factors that impact on industry
and society over which we have very little
control or influence Climate Change
is one
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Building Adaptive Capacity
International Supply and Demand
Climate Change
Agro Ecological Zones
Annual Weather Patterns

• Adaptive capacity is the ability to successfully
  cope with the impact - using responses over
  which it has a high degree of control or
  influence

Resilient Sensitive
Adaptive Capacity
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An example How can Australian industry
understand and manage the effects of increased
CO2 (in association with other CC parameters) on
plant growth and function. To manage risk, the
grains industry has to know the interactive
effects of

• Elevated CO2
• Changed rainfall
• Increased temperature
• Increased atmospheric
• evaporative potential
• Nutritional change
• on its capacity to produce compete

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However, there are major gaps in knowledge

• There is not one field-based study that has
  addressed the effects of elevated CO2 under
  Australian conditions.
• There can be no comfort from the results obtained
  in controlled environment experiments or from
  northern hemisphere studies.

• Industry view Australian agriculture
  recognises that it has a window of opportunity
  during these early warning stages to prepare
  for the effects of climate change on all levels
  of industry.

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A national approach to assessing the impacts of
CC in agriculture

• Free air CO2 enriched (FACE) experiments on wheat
  are planned to be a major national focus for the
  AGO
• Possible for a FACE-wheat site to be located in
  WA (requires CO2 and partnerships)
• Outcomes will be important to identify the future
  asset value of agricultural land (production,
  economics, social and environmental issues in a
  changed climate)

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National Adaptation Framework

• Context - growing international and national
  attention on adaptation
• COAG recently recognised adaptation as a key
  national climate change issue
• Benefits in joint work to address
  cross-jurisdictional issues and impacts, share
  learnings and minimise duplication
• Many issues not being currently addressed in
  sectoral Ministerial Councils
• Collaboration needed to develop a National
  Adaptation Framework

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Concluding Remarks

• There is no doubt that climate change is
  occurring and there are unavoidable
  consequences for Australias governments,
  industries and communities
• Climate change must be considered a fundamental
  part of the core operating environment
• The approach for sectors and regions must be to
  understand risk, manage to increase resilience,
  and take adaptation action to manage risk and
  cope with climate change
• The Australian Government has a range of
  programmes to address climate change but these
  alone will not solve the problems
• It is imperative for all governments and industry
  sectors to take greater initiative and leadership
  in climate change
• When should we start to give climate change the
  attention it needs?

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And REMEMBER NOAH
What would have happened if Noah had waited until
the flood - before starting to build the Ark?
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CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION
Knowledge to realise opportunities and manage
risks THE END