Adapting to Climate Change
While our goal is to try and mitigate the worst affects of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we are already committed to a changed climate. This is why adaptation should be part of your climate change strategy.
The direct impacts of climate change include increased temperature, shifts in rainfall patterns, increased evaporation, rising sea levels, more weather extremes and bushfires.
Adaptation is about planning for these changes and understanding what they mean for our way of life. A common example is the house on the beach. With rising sea levels and more severe weather extremes, storm surges may wash away the beach and potentially the foundations, leading to damage to property or in the worse case, collapse. Adaptation is about deciding how to deal with this, and is not necessarily an easy task. In Western Australia the government has forecast that around 20,000 buildings are at risk of inundation. One response to this risk is for local governments to refuse planning approval without a minimum set back from the beach (see this previous blog).
However, we don’t all live on the beach, and when it isn’t your house, it can be easier to ignore. So what about other impacts? For example, climate change can improve conditions for invasive pest species, which can wipe out native species and may have a numerous impacts on our way of life and economy (see this YouTube video). Increased storm severity is likely to lead to more frequent damage to property (both private and public), which may lead to increased insurance expenses. Reduced rainfall, increased temperatures and increased evaporation may reduce our water supplies, which in turn will increase the cost of water and we may seesome open space areas are no longer watered, thus affecting our recreational lifestyles.
These changes to our climate have the potential to impact many aspects of our lifestyle and our businesses, and they often cause a chain reaction where one change leads to another and so on. Adaptation starts off with a risk assessment approach: identifying and prioritising the climate change risks specific to your area. Armed with this knowledge you can target your Adaptation Strategy to address key risks first and ensure sufficient resources are allocated to deal with them.
Greensense have worked with a number of clients to assist with identifying climate change risks, developing action plans, developing policies and strategies and consulting with the community. If you feel your organisation is not equipped to deal with the likely effects of climate change, we can help.
Tags: Adaptation