Improving Australian climate change adaption strategies: learning from international experience.

Abstract

Key Points

• Adaptation is identified in the literature as bringing together interventions and decisions concerning climate change, disaster risk reduction (DRR), and sustainable development.

• In Australia, at the national level, adaptation policy frameworks rely on an aspirational strategic document, the 2021 National Adaptation Strategy. This strategy does not provide concrete guidance for action or link to structured financial mechanisms for its implementation.

• Across Australia’s different states and territories, adaptation approaches vary; each jurisdiction adopts a different policy framework, with Victoria being the only state mandating adaptation plans.

• In the United States (US), the current federal administration has invested in strengthening federal standards and establishing long-term financial support for mitigation actions, shifting toward more nature-based solutions to protect cities and urban centres from the impact of natural disasters.

• The European (EU) roadmap to 2050 climate resilience, the Green Deal, frames the EU adaptation approach, which bridges national urban policies and interventions coherently.

• This study finds that substantial and long-term financial investments, community-based risk management, and nature-based solutions are common traits of effective mitigation strategies implemented internationally to effectively address natural disaster impact on cities.

• A lack of leadership by the Australian Government, fragmentation of governance structure, and a tendency of ’business as usual’ approaches has been highlighted by experts as undermining the opportunities to adopt discussed international strategies for effective adaptation in Australia.

• Further research to inform policy development is needed to improve the current governance model to align leadership, organisation, and policy through better coordination of actors, actions and regulations to increase institutional capacity.