Victorian Climate Change Green Paper
Part 5 - Adaptation: a new reality
Green Paper part 5 - Adaptation (Printable version PDF - 415 KB)
Dealing with climate change will be a part of the reality of life in Victoria for many decades to come.
5.1 Managing our water resources
5.2 Victoria’s natural ecosystems
5.3 Adapting to change in the built environment
5.4 Building responsive emergency services
5.5 Health and wellbeing in a changing climate
Our climate change goals
Three of the Government’s proposed long-term goals are relevant to Victoria’s efforts to adapt to climate change.
- Goal 5 - Enable Victoria’s regions, industries and communities to capture opportunities and adapt to a changing climate
- Goal 6 - Promote resilience and improve the management of Victoria’s natural resources, ecosystems and biodiversity
- Goal 7 - Manage the risks to Victoria’s infrastructure, built environment and communities through good planning and emergency response systems
The Victorian Government will take action to enable people, regions, industries and communities across the State to manage the risks ahead, capture new opportunities and adapt to the impacts of a changing climate. The Government will also take action to manage Victoria’s natural resources responsibly and sustainably, and to minimise the damaging effects of climate change on the State’s infrastructure, built environment and communities.
Victoria's climate change opportunities - adapting to climate change
| Water management technologies | Becoming a world leader in efficient water management technologies, including sustainable irrigation, water recycling and water markets. |
| Biotechnology | Building on our growing leadership in biotechnology to develop products and services that will reduce the impacts of climate change, such as drought resistant crops, soil remediation technologies and treatments for infectious diseases, biofuels and petrochemical replacements. |
| Emergency responses | Building on a record of world’s best practice in hazard prevention, mitigation, response and recovery. |
| Education and training | Providing education about climate change - and training in the skills needed to adapt to climate change - to countries in our region. |
| Sustainable food and farming systems | Becoming leaders in advanced sustainable food and farming systems that provide quality food, reduce greenhouse emissions and deliver natural resource outcomes. |
Why do we need to adapt?
Even if all greenhouse gas emissions ended today, some climate change will still occur due to past emissions already in the atmosphere. This means that some damage from climate change - possibly substantial damage - will be experienced by people around the world for the foreseeable future. Victoria’s ability to adapt quickly to this new reality and make the most of new opportunities will be critical to our future economic prosperity and quality of life.
Across the State, people, communities, businesses and industries are already adapting to the impacts of climate change. But as time goes on, these impacts will become more significant, wide ranging and complex - and they will affect all Victorians.
Some of these impacts will develop gradually; others will be in the form of big events and shocks. Changes in climate will also have different effects on different people and places, and the risks and impacts will vary.
If managed well, these changes will present opportunities for Victoria in new markets, technologies and industries. But if we fail to adapt successfully to climate change, we may face severe and lasting consequences, including lower productivity, property and financial losses, higher costs for many goods and services, reduced health and wellbeing, and negative impacts on natural features, habitats and species.
In many cases, we are now in uncharted territory. The past is no longer a reliable guide to the future. Instead, we must rely on climate scientists to model a range of plausible future scenarios for climate change and then try and fit our decisions to these scenarios.
This high level of uncertainty makes it challenging for governments, individuals and the community to know how to best prepare for the future. On the one hand, we must recognise that a failure to plan for the more extreme, yet scientifically plausible, climate change outcomes could expose communities to the risk of severe - possibly even catastrophic - impacts. On the other hand, to attempt now to ‘climate-proof‘ communities and the natural environment against these uncertain events may impose unnecessary costs on current and future generations of Victorians. This is not a reason for resignation or inaction; it simply acknowledges that adaptation to climate change comes at a cost.
The best adaptation responses will change over time. It clearly makes sense to undertake some adaptation actions now, while in some other areas, the costs of acting today will outweigh any benefits that might be realised in the future. A number of factors need to be considered in determining which early responses should be adopted; in particular, early action will be appropriate where:
- It is more efficient because retrofitting at a later date will be expensive and inconvenient - for example, making adjustments to long-term development plans and the design stages of long-lived infrastructure investments such as water supply, bridges and ports
- It gives rise to benefits in the short-term - for example, measures that will help to ameliorate the impacts of climate variability (such as improvements in long-term weather forecasting) or that strengthen the resilience of natural ecosystems
- It locks in long-term benefits at reasonable cost - for example, by preventing long term damage to ecosystems.
Support private action to adapt to a changing climate, and undertake adaptation actions on behalf of the Victorian community to protect the environment, key public assets and manage major public risks.
What is adaptation?
Adaptation is about taking deliberate actions to avoid, manage or reduce the consequences of a hotter, drier climate (with more extreme weather events) and to take advantage of the opportunities such changes may generate.
Adapting to climate change must be built into the normal planning and risk management activities of individuals, businesses, community groups and government agencies.
Adaptation can take many different forms. It may include education and training about climate change; it may involve proactive responses such as the development of emergency plans to deal with severe weather events, large scale tree planting or providing greater protection for coastal communities; or it may require more technical and scientific solutions, such as developing drought-resistant crops, increasing energy efficiency and changing agricultural and industry practices.
The role for government in adaptation
Adaptation to climate change will involve a joint effort across the Victorian community, with many actions - small and large - being taken by households, firms, governments and communities. While government will be a key player, the role of individuals, businesses and the community sector will also be critical because of the scope and scale of the Government involvement in adaptation to climate change is very different from its role in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Without direct government intervention in reducing emissions, individuals do not have a strong incentive to change their behaviour to benefit the climate. This creates a clear role for government to step in and deliver the right incentives for individuals and businesses to act in a way that improves environmental outcomes - the CPRS, which puts a price on carbon, is the most obvious example of this. In contrast, there are strong incentives for individuals to take action to adapt to a changing climate because it is in their own best interests to do so, irrespective of the actions taken by government.
Accordingly, the key role for government in adaptation is to create the right conditions for individuals, firms and communities to make timely, well-informed and efficient decisions as they adapt to climate change. In particular, government can assist by creating a market and regulatory environment that encourages individual adaptability and flexibility in responding to climate change.
Government can also undertake adaptation actions where these will not be initiated by the private or community sectors because of market failures. For example, government will have a role to play in helping the natural environment to prepare for and adapt to climate change, and in protecting long-lived or high-value public assets. Government will also need to drive the response in areas such as essential and emergency services (for example, public health and water supply).
State and Local Government have a clear role in leading and implementing adaptation strategies because they are closer to local communities and have access to the tools needed to respond to the complex, interrelated impacts of climate change. Moreover, the most affected areas - in particular, the natural and built environment fall within State Government responsibilities.
The Commonwealth Government has clear roles in providing research on national priorities, creating opportunities for sharing knowledge between the states and funding adaptation actions. While these roles and responsibilities are well-established, a coordinated approach across all levels of government will be needed to deliver the best outcomes for Victorians.
The role of the private sector
Actions taken by the private sector in Victoria are vitally important to adapting successfully to climate change. These actions should result in the most innovative, locally-appropriate and cost effective adaptation response. Commonwealth, State and Local Government should facilitate this response by ensuring that private markets (insurance, for example) and regulatory structures (such as water markets) are effective.
The ‘best’ way to adapt to a changing climate may vary greatly for different individuals, different locations and different types of communities. Depending on circumstances, some individuals will be happy to ignore the risks or delay decisions, while others will be keen to ‘lock in’ high levels of protection today. Where the benefits of adaptation actions are experienced by individuals (such as the protection of private property), the private sector is generally best placed to manage climate change risks.
Businesses and the community sector will often be best placed to respond to the needs and preferences of individuals and communities. Over time, firms will develop products and services to satisfy the demands of Victorians who are responding in their own ways to climate change.
Victoria’s diverse and robust market economy means that we are well placed to respond to these changing demands. Because of this diversity, a single, ‘one size fits all’ adaptation strategy is not likely to represent the best approach.
Building resilience to climate impacts
To successfully adapt to climate change, we need to understand that different systems are connected: natural systems (which support life and provide resources that we often take for granted), human systems (businesses, networks and communities), the infrastructure that supports our industries and livelihoods, and the buildings where we live and work. All these systems are vulnerable to climate impacts and all are connected to each other.
The connection between these systems means that the Victorian Government and community will need to simultaneously build the resilience of ecosystems, the community, industries and our supply and distribution networks (including for food).
To do this the Government plans to focus on:
- Sustainably managing public assets, including natural resources (such as state forests and national parks, plant and animal biodiversity, beaches, groundwater, rivers and marine environments) and infrastructure (such as roads, our rail network and bridges)
- Sponsoring research that will provide a robust base for taking action to address the specific impacts of climate change (such as the Future Coasts project and examination of potential biosecurity threats or changes in weed and pest distributions)
- Building the Victorian community’s capacity to assess and manage risks by providing appropriate information, resources, incentives and skills to adapt to climate change impacts
- Identifying and addressing the barriers that may prevent communities, regions and industry sectors from adapting to climate change
- Identifying and managing specific risks to the safety and security of the community that are beyond the capacity of individuals, businesses and not-for-profit groups to manage (such as biosecurity threats, pandemics and catastrophic events)
- Working in partnership with the private sector and the not-for-profit sector where coordinated effort is required to address public and private risk (for example, to ensure the electricity transmission network is resilient to a changing climate).
What is resilience?
Resilience means the ability of human or natural systems to withstand, recover from or adapt to significant pressures and stresses without losing their essential characteristics.
Community resilience refers to the ability of a place - a town, suburb or community - to absorb and recover from climate shocks, extreme weather events and long term impacts without suffering major, long lasting physical, financial, economic or social damage.
Ecological resilience refers to the ability of an ecosystem, habitat, population or organism to withstand and recover from climate stresses and retain their essential processes and functions.
Many of the actions we take to build resilience into communities and ecosystems will not only help us to cope with a changing climate; they can also lead to other positive outcomes.
How we can adpat to a changing climate
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Adapting to climate change in our regions
The impacts of the changing climate will be felt differently across Victoria’s regions. As a result, there can be no ‘one size fits all’ approach to making sure that our regions are resilient to climate change.
One critical aspect of ensuring that our regional communities adapt successfully to the impacts of climate change is to develop a robust understanding of likely regional changes in the climate. The Victorian Government provides financial support for the work of the CSIRO in developing regional climate change projections for Victoria. These projections provide the basis of our understanding of the broad impacts in Victoria’s regions of the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions. Specific information about these possible impacts is set out in regional climate change projection brochures produced by the Victorian Government. These brochures can be found at www.climatechange.vic.gov.au.
The Government has also commissioned a specialist analysis, Sectoral and Regional Vulnerabilities to Climate Change in Victoria, which has assessed vulnerability to climate change in nine industry sectors across Victoria’s 11 statistical divisions. This study illustrates the range of climate impacts that Victoria’s regions are likely to experience and gives a broad indication of the possible impact of a carbon price on regional jobs and income.
We need to build on this important work to further develop our understanding of the specific impacts of climate change across Victoria’s regions. In particular, we need to investigate ‘cross cutting’ issues to better understand how biophysical constraints will affect the socio-economic framework of regions.
In the short-term, the major adaptation challenge for our regions will be coping with an increasingly variable water supply. The Government is tackling this challenge and is developing regional sustainable water strategies to plan for long-term water security across Victoria through the Our Water Our Future action plan. Each sustainable water strategy sets out a long term regional plan to secure water for local growth, while maintaining the balance of the area’s water system and safeguarding the future of rivers and other natural water sources.
Climate change will have a multiplying effect on the other challenges facing regional Victoria, such as unprecedented population growth and an increasingly competitive economic environment. Integrating climate change considerations into regional planning is a key challenge for many regional communities over the coming decades. The Government’s Regional Strategic Planning Initiative will provide a comprehensive framework to manage change in provincial Victoria. This initiative will focus on developing long term regional and sub-regional plans, which provide a vision and a set of actions to achieve common goals for the development of productive, sustainable, liveable communities in regional and rural Victoria.
Similar to the regional sustainable water strategies being rolled out through the Our Water Our Future Plan action plan and the development of the regional catchment strategies, Victoria’s regions will need access to detailed region-specific information on planning, practices and technologies to ensure that decision makers, entrepreneurs and individuals can make informed decisions.
Some of these decisions will be hard. Patterns of settlement in regional areas are likely to require careful consideration of the risks posed by fire and the availability of water supply. Some industries will become more difficult to sustain and others will need to alter their practices significantly. The Government will need to support these decisions through integrated regional planning and regionally specific approaches to adaptation. The Government will also need to provide support and access to accurate information to help regions to resolve the difficult issues of climate change and deliver positive outcomes for the wider regional economy in Victoria.
Questions to consider
- What support do you need from the Government to better prepare for climate change in your household, business or community?
- What are the barriers preventing you from preparing effectively?
- How can we ensure government, households and businesses are able to prepare for and take early action to reduce the costs of adapting to climate change?
- What are the roles of government, households and businesses in preparing for the impacts of climate change?
5.1 Managing our water resources
As all Victorians know, we face some tough choices and difficult decisions about how we use our scarce water resources and secure our future water supply. These choices and decisions may become even more challenging as the impacts of climate change are felt across the State.
What we need to do
For more than a decade, large parts of southern and eastern Australia have suffered from dry conditions that are without precedent. Since 1997, rainfall has been significantly below the long-term average across most of Victoria and there have been large reductions in streamflows. The severity of the situation has resulted in depleted storages, widespread water restrictions and constraints on rural water supplies. Rivers, wetlands and aquifers have suffered due to the combined effects of extended low flows, reduced recharge and the over-allocation of water resources. Estuaries and inlets are being affected by reduced freshwater inflows that include important nutrients and breeding environments. Groundwater levels have also declined due to reduced recharge and greater demand.
These persistent dry conditions have brought into stark relief the central importance of water to Victorian communities, the State’s economy and our quality of life. Understanding the impacts of climate change on Victoria’s water resources is essential to adapting to climate change and to making good planning decisions about our water into the future.
Research is continuing to improve our understanding of the uncertainty of future water supply under climate change. At this stage, it is not possible to determine the extent to which the weather trends observed over the last 11 years are evidence of a permanent step down in water availability due to climate change or whether this reflects natural variability. However, we can say with some degree of confidence that it is very likely that the current low rainfall and run-off in Victoria is at least partly due to global warming and that the persistent dry conditions of the last decade may continue.
This uncertainty means that in developing strategies for managing Victoria’s water resources, we must consider the possibility that we will face dry conditions well into the future. We must plan to manage our water in a way that will enable us to respond if this scenario eventuates.
While we have made big improvements in improving water efficiency and reducing water consumption, there are still many opportunities for Victorian households, businesses, farmers and irrigators to source and use water more sustainably.
What we’ve already done
The Government is delivering record levels of investment to secure Victoria’s water future. Actions include:
- Acting on a long-term plan for water - Our Water Our Future - which aims to secure Victoria’s water future for the next 50 years and includes more than 100 initiatives for water conservation across every sector of the community
- Allocating $4.9 billion for the Victorian Water Plan (the Next Stage of Our Water Our Future), which includes building Australia’s largest desalination plant, modernising irrigation infrastructure in northern Victoria, upgrading the Eastern Treatment Plant and expanding Victoria’s water grid
- Expanding the efficient use of recycled water and setting and achieving a target of recycling 20 per cent of Melbourne’s wastewater
- Achieving a 30 per cent reduction in total per capita water consumption in Melbourne
- Introducing the Water Smart Gardens and Homes Rebate Scheme, which has saved more than 1.8 billion litres of water since 2003 by providing more than 190,000 rebates
- Developing regional sustainable water strategies to plan for long term water security across Victoria
- Requiring businesses that use large amounts of water to develop Water Management Action Plans.
The Victorian Government has a crucial role in managing the State’s water resources. Since the introduction of the Our Water Our Future: Securing Our Water Future Together plan in 2004, the Government has already adopted many of the options available to improve water management in Victoria.
Through this framework the Government will continue to plan for the State’s water security in the face of rainfall variability, an increasing population and a growing economy through a broad range of demand and supply measures.
Dealing with the ‘new normal’
In January 2004, I came to sit in the chair at the head of the table at Melbourne Water, feeling - equally - a strong sense of responsibility for providing water and sewerage services to Melburnians, a sensation of being a link in the long chain of the organisational history, and a sense of pride in the depth of knowledge, skills and commitment of our people.
In 2006 the organisation faced perhaps its biggest climate change challenge. The streamflows that our reservoirs rely on dropped to levels that were unprecedented - similar to what the CSIRO had predicted for 2050 under a ‘severe’ climate change scenario.
That single year, on top of a decade of drought, illustrated that we could no longer rely on history to predict water security. It was a clear sign that we needed to bring forward actions in the Victorian Government’s water plan in order to find another 240 billion litres of water by 2012.
The projects that were accelerated - reconnection of Tarago Reservoir, the Sugarloaf Pipeline and the desalination plant - are the only solutions that could secure Melbourne’s water supply in time. We are now modelling the past 10 years of streamflows as the ‘new normal’ and not assuming a return to historical inflows. It is a prediction being played out again in 2008, as our storages continue to test fresh lows.
Melbourne Water is now planning mitigation and adaptation measures for water supply, sewerage treatment, drainage, waterways management and fire protection in our catchments - for climate change affects every aspect of our business. We are evaluating renewable energy options, better ways to mitigate and manage floods, protect our valuable assets such as the Western Treatment Plant and our catchments, as well as the provision of large volumes of recycled water as an alternate water source for non-drinking purposes.
Leadership is about accountability. I am fortunate to have a role in the history of Melbourne Water when we are repositioning the organisation for Melburnians to account for future variabilities in our climate and still delivering high quality water, sewerage, drainage and waterways services.
Cheryl Batagol
Chairman, Melbourne Water Corporation
Our Water Our Future: the next stage of the Government’s Water Plan
Unprecedented low inflows in the calendar year of 2006 demonstrated the need for large scale augmentations to Melbourne’s water supply system.
An extensive examination of the range of large supply options capable of meeting the shortfall revealed that the best approach for Victoria was to move away from relying on one major source of supply (reservoirs) to a portfolio of diverse water sources. This approach will create a balance between traditional water sources and contributions from water conservation, rainfall independent sources of water and water reuse from recycling. The Government is investing nearly $5 billion to achieve this more diversified water portfolio, including:
- Building Australia’s largest desalination plant near Wonthaggi - This rainfall independent source of water will start supplying up to 150 billion litres a year in 2011 (one third of Melbourne’s annual requirements).
- Saving water by modernising leaky, old irrigation infrastructure in northern Victoria’s Food Bowl region - The Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project will recover 425 billion litres of water now being lost through evaporation, seepage and system inefficiencies. Eighty per cent of the water saved will stay in northern Victoria for use by irrigators and the environment.
- Updating the Victorian water grid by building new pipelines to move water to where it is needed most - Projects include the Goldfields Superpipe supplying Bendigo and Ballarat, and the Wimmera Mallee, Hamilton-Grampians, Sugarloaf and Geelong-Melbourne pipelines.
- Increasing recycling - Opportunities for recovery and reuse of water from waste water systems can provide valuable alternative water supplies. As an example, the Government has completed a recycled water business case for the Eastern Treatment Plant.
- Supporting new and existing water conservation programs for homes and industry - The Government will continue to develop its approach to water conservation and household and industrial use of water, building on the efforts made by Victorians to conserve water (such as the Water Smart Gardens and Homes Rebate Schemes).
How can we build on the Government’s Water Plan to secure Victoria’s water future, by using water differently as individuals, households, communities and businesses?
5.2 Victoria’s natural ecosystems
Many of our natural systems are already under stress and climate change adds a further major pressure - one that will stretch the limits previously encountered by many ecosystems.
Victoria’s natural ecosystems are vitally important to all aspects of life in Victoria. They provide the food and natural resources that are essential to life, as well as supporting important industries, communities and regional economies. A healthy natural environment is also essential to our physical and emotional wellbeing, providing opportunities for recreation and relaxation. All Victorians have ethical and inter-generational obligations to ensure that our behaviour does not lead to the loss of habitats, iconic natural assets, and plant and animal species.
What we need to do
The failure to build resilience into our natural systems - and help them to adapt to and recover from the impacts of climate change - will have far reaching and long lasting consequences. Without action, ecosystems, habitats and plant and animal species may be lost forever or irretrievably damaged.
Victoria’s ecosystems provide many tangible and intangible benefits that are essential for human wellbeing, including water purification, climate regulation, biodiversity, nutrient cycling, carbon storage and support for fisheries. These benefits mean that building ecosystem resilience is not only important to protecting the quality and beauty of Victoria’s unique natural environment; it is also critical to strengthening the ability of ecosystems to contribute to reducing the impacts of climate change.
Biologically diverse, resilient ecosystems are better able to withstand and recover from disturbances such as fire, drought and pest invasions. Such systems can also sustain carbon storage over time. When the resilience of an ecosystem is reduced through loss of biodiversity or habitat destruction, fragmentation and isolation, the system’s ability to retain and store carbon and deliver other vital natural services is put at risk.
It is also important to recognise that social, economic and ecological resilience are intertwined. For example, where particular natural environments also generate tourism revenue, local communities are more likely to support limits on particular activities to better manage these environments and build their resilience to future pressures. This interconnection between natural and human systems means that the good management of our natural systems should be seen as an opportunity to secure the future not only of Victoria’s unique habitats, ecosystems and species, but also of our economic and social wellbeing - and, ultimately, our quality of life.
All Victorians share a responsibility to help to strengthen ecosystem resilience and biodiversity. While the Government can lead the way in many areas, actions taken by individuals, businesses and communities will be critical to protecting our unique natural assets and environment.
What we’ve already done
The Government is already taking action to protect and build the resilience of Victoria’s natural assets and ecosystems, including:
- Developing the Land and Biodiversity at a Time of Climate Change White Paper, which will set the agenda for land, fresh and marine water, and biodiversity management over the next 20 to 50 years
- Releasing a new Victorian Coastal Strategy, which includes new actions to help coastal regions to adapt to climate change over the next five years
- Establishing the Future Coasts project, which is assessing areas of the coast that are most vulnerable to the impacts of sea level rise and climate change.
Areas where the Government can take action to increase natural system resilience are being addressed through the Land and Biodiversity White Paper. These include:
- Building ecosystem resilience statewide
The Government wants to increase efforts to build ecosystem resilience at the broader, statewide level. This will require taking action at the ‘landscape level’ (including a focus on maintaining native species diversity and supporting threatened species), improving the connections between ecosystems and protecting high-value natural assets, which provide important ecosystem services.
- Sustainable land management
Despite widespread efforts by Government, landholders and community groups, the condition of private land in Victoria is still declining, and climate change will place even greater pressure on landscapes and aquatic environments. The Government is taking action to enhance the health of productive ecosystems, including supporting landholders to improve land management practices, encouraging new ideas and innovation in adaptive management, and developing a land stewardship approach among communities and land managers.
- Coasts
Climate change poses significant risks to the Victorian coast and managing these risks presents considerable challenges for the Victorian Government and Local Governments (which share responsibility for planning and managing natural and built assets on the coast) and for residents, businesses and communities. To make good decisions about the future of the coast, we need to better understand the potential impacts of climate change on key coastal and marine assets, water patterns, biodiversity and ecosystems. We then need to translate this research into policy and planning approaches that address sea level rises and climate change risks, and into new approaches to managing key coastal and marine assets, water patterns, biodiversity and ecosystems.
How can we ensure the resilience of our ecosystems at a time of climate change, and the crucial role they play in our social and economic wellbeing?
Our large ecological footprint
As the global economy expands, humanity is using more and more of the earth’s natural resources. Since the Industrial Revolution, continued growth in demand has been met by exploiting previously untouched resources, encouraging a belief that there is no limit to expansion.
The limitations of the earth’s resources, however, are now becoming apparent. WWF’s Living Planet Report 2008, the organisation’s biennial assessment of the natural world, paints a bleak picture of our future.
Living Planet Report 2008 shows that the drain on natural resources and increasing volumes of waste created by our consumption are putting the planet’s wildlife at risk of extinction, as well as putting strain on the lives of people in developing communities.
Living Planet Report 2008 also shows that the average Australian’s ecological footprint, the land needed to produce the food and services used and absorb all the waste, is bigger than that of someone in the U.K, China, Russia or India.
It is reasonable to suggest that Australia’s and the world’s economy will continue to expand into the future; however, it will not be possible to continue the current model for using natural resources - access, process, single use and disposal. Economies must try to ‘close the loop’ between production and disposal, reducing the waste of energy and materials at each step.
Implementing circular flows of resources will take time, but it is achievable. Some well established examples already exist, such as renewable energy and the materials recycling industry. An aluminium drink can made from recycled materials has just 5 per cent of the embodied energy a virgin product would contain.
Our lives and livelihoods depend on the earth’s natural resources. Put simply, we are consuming the planet’s resources faster than they can be replenished.
Greg Bourne
Chief Executive Officer - WWF Australia
5.3 Adapting to change in the built environment
Victoria is entering uncharted territory when it comes to the impacts of a changing climate on our homes, commercial and industrial buildings, public buildings (such as museums and galleries), community facilities (such as schools and hospitals) and major infrastructure (such as roads, rail networks, bridges and ports).
What we need to do
Climate change will alter the range, exposure, intensity and frequency of natural hazards such as bushfire, flooding, coastal inundation, heat waves and infectious diseases. Across Victoria, many buildings and structures are vulnerable to these impacts. Almost all types of major infrastructure such as roads, rail networks, bridges, airports, tunnels, ports and pipelines are potentially at risk from storms, coastal inundation, extreme rainfall events and higher temperatures. Water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure is also likely to be affected. Our cities and towns are also vulnerable, with buildings, transport systems and essential services likely to be affected.
Over time, our settlements, buildings and infrastructure will need to adapt to these impacts to avoid unacceptable social, economic and environmental outcomes.
As in many other areas, we are grappling with considerable uncertainty about these impacts. We must plan ahead to make sure that we are prepared for these impacts and do not make them worse by failing to consider all possible scenarios. This means that consideration of the impacts of climate change will need to be incorporated into all aspects of the built environment, including land use planning, the planning and design of infrastructure, building performance and the design of urban systems. This will require a planning system and a regulatory environment that takes into account climate change to a far greater extent than at present.
While these impacts create significant potential risks, the technology, knowledge and experience are available to address most of these risks. We will need to apply this expertise in planning, designing, constructing and maintaining buildings and infrastructure. Similar expertise will also need to be applied in relation to land use and urban planning, where historic risks (such as 1-in-100 year flood levels) are no longer an appropriate guide when planning for future climate change impacts.
What we’ve already done
The Government is taking action to minimise the risks to Victoria’s built environment from climate change, including:
- Carrying out the Infrastructure and climate change risk assessment for Victoria (2007), which identified the types of buildings, structures and facilities as particularly vulnerable to many of the risks associated with climate change
- Undertaking work to identify and map risks in relation to the coast (Future Coasts), flooding (Victorian Flood Strategy) and bushfires
- Releasing the Planning for all of Melbourne paper, which starts the process of incorporating climate change risks into Victoria’s planning system
- Revising the Precinct Structure Planning Guidelines to take climate change impacts into account when planning and designing new communities
- Contributing $370 million to the Melbourne Convention Centre Development - accredited with the first 6 Star Green Star environmental rating in Australia for a convention centre.
The Victorian Government has an important role in preparing the built environment for climate change through government policy in land use planning, urban infrastructure and systems, and building performance.
The Government can assist in a number of areas, including:
- Making sure that climate change considerations are incorporated into planning policies, legislation, regulations and processes
- Identifying and acting to protect critical public infrastructure that may be at risk from the impacts of climate change and constructing protective infrastructure where appropriate
- Updating policies for the design, construction and retrofitting of buildings, transport systems and other urban infrastructure - and for the planning of new and existing suburbs - to reflect the latest assessment of climate change risks
- Providing decision makers (such as planners, developers, architects and local councils) with appropriate risk management tools and guidance materials
- Increasing the resilience of buildings and structures to climate change impacts by strengthening building performance standards and regulations
- Providing up to date, accurate information to enable people to make decisions about how and when to retrofit existing buildings to higher performance standards
- Supporting further research into improving building performance in an era of climate change
- Mapping vulnerable locations and households with a limited capacity to respond to climate impacts and assessing the risks for communities and assets.
A question to consider
What are the critical areas the Government needs to address in relation to adapting our urban built environment and infrastructure to climate change?
Stormwater and climate change
Climate change means we have to change the way we run our urban water systems.
In the past we relied on plentiful stream flows into our dams. No longer.
Reduced rainfall and drier soils mean substantially less run-off and less water in the dams. In the last decade, inflows into Melbourne’s dams were 34 per cent lower than the long term average. With climate change and increasing temperatures, the situation is likely to get worse, not better.
We will need to use a diversity of water sources to survive climate change: desalination, recycled water, and stormwater as well as dams. We will also need to continue to conserve water - the cheapest and most environmentally friendly way to cope with less water. Not wasting water means less money needs to be spent on expensive infrastructure.
Stormwater is a ‘new’ source of water that has been under-utilised to date. Stormwater can be harvested for use close to where it is needed - for example, for gardens or flushing toilets in new housing developments. Stormwater harvesting systems can function with very low energy use and provide relatively low-cost water.
Stormwater harvesting has other benefits that are important in a world that must adapt to climate change. Stormwater harvesting can be used to minimise flooding. This will become increasingly important as we experience more severe weather events.
Our cities are getting warmer not only because of climate change, but also because of the urban heat island effect. Hard urban surfaces can raise local temperatures by 5 degrees. Building wetlands and using vegetation for natural stormwater treatment will make our cities more liveable and reduce the urban heat island effect.
More stormwater runs through our drainage system causing pollution in our creeks and bays than the total amount of water used by households. By harvesting as much of this stormwater as possible, we can help to overcome water shortages, reduce urban temperatures and improve the liveability of our cities.
John Thwaites
Chair - Monash University Sustainability Institute and former Deputy Premier of Victoria
5.4 Building responsive emergency services
Climate change will result in more frequent, more intense weather events (such as storms, strong winds, floods and heatwaves) and a higher risk of fire.
With more parts of the State likely to be affected by these events, Victoria needs to be well-prepared to respond quickly and effectively to these crises. We also need to take action where we can to prevent the more damaging and disastrous consequences of these events and to improve our ability to restore and rehabilitate communities, infrastructure and the natural environment once they are over.
What we need to do
Victoria’s emergency services have been early adapters to climate change. In many cases, this process of adaptation has been necessary to cope with climate change impacts that are already being felt across the State, including an increase in the number of significant weather-related emergencies over the past decade.
An 11-year drought, major bushfires in 2002-03, 2005 and 2006-07, the Gippsland floods of 2007 and a major windstorm in Melbourne and surrounding areas in early 2008 represent a substantial rise in emergency activity.
Since 2002-03, there have been significant spikes in Victoria State Emergency Service activity (the VICSES being the agency with primary responsibility for dealing with floods and storms) and fire service activity related to major bushfire events. While these events cannot all be attributed to climate change, they illustrate the challenges that we will confront as climate change causes more extreme weather events.
The catastrophic and tragic fires of 7 February 2009 - on the hottest day in Victoria’s history and following on from the record heat wave just over a week before - demonstrate the scale of the challenge confronting our communities and emergency services.
The Victorian Government has made a commitment to review all aspects of the February 2009 fires and the State’s preparedness and response to these fires. The Government has established a Royal Commission, chaired by Justice Bernard Teague, to investigate the fires. The Commission will detail the lessons the Victorian Government and community need to learn as we rebuild and prepare for future extreme fire events.
Projections of the impacts of climate change on Victoria suggest that we will need to prepare for a higher number of days throughout the year that can lead to extreme conflagrations.
The Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) provides one indication of fire risk based on a combination of weather variables including temperature, rainfall, humidity and wind speed. In both 2020 and 2050, this index is predicted to increase for Melbourne, indicating higher fire danger, particularly in spring, summer and autumn.
By 2020 it is expected that the number of ‘extreme’ fire danger days for Victoria will generally increase by between 5 per cent and 40 per cent relative to the period from 1974 to 2003. By 2050 (as Figure 7 shows), the number of ‘extreme’ fire days is likely to increase much more significantly.
Figure 7 - Change in the occurrence of extreme fire days in Victoria.
Coinciding with this rising fire threat is the growing number of communities, infrastructure, industries and natural assets under threat from bushfires. Strong population growth in high bushfire risk areas, has also increased the exposure of communities to fire risk.
What we’ve already done
Victoria’s emergency services are preparing for climate change. For example:
- In September 2007, the Country Fire Authority endorsed a set of priorities aimed at reducing climate change impacts across the organisation, including Improving the environmental performance of buildings and vehicles, and identifying a date by which the CFA will become carbon-neutral
- The Government has provided record levels of funding and resources to Victoria’s emergency services - including increasing base level funding for the annual fire effort from around $30 million in 1999 to more than $100 million in 2008
- We have developed specific programs in place to deal with extreme weather events such as drought, flood, fire and heatwaves
- The Government is reviewing regulations and guidelines applying to the location and design of new fringe settlements
- The Living with Fire - Victoria’s Bushfire Strategy, released in 2008, sets out a new approach to managing the increased fire risk that is likely to occur as a result of climate change.
While the focus of adaptation action to date has been on the physical impacts of weather-related events, the February 2009 bushfires show that a large scale event also has wide ranging social and economic impacts that need to be considered. These include loss of life, social dislocation, dispersal of local populations, the destruction of entire communities, disruption to industries and economic activity, and widespread health effects, especially in relation to mental health.
In the future, our emergency services will not only be dealing with more frequent and more extreme events, such as fires, they will also face climate-related problems (such as water shortages) and business impacts (such as minimising their carbon footprints and ensuring that buildings and infrastructure are climate resilient). The capacity of emergency services to respond to climate change is also being hampered by a decline in general levels of volunteering across the community.
We also face the challenge of preparing for events that have not yet occurred (or have not occurred for some time) but are more likely to occur because of climate change. Similarly, health-related emergencies such as pandemics, aeroallergens, vector-borne and other diseases and have been comparatively rare and would have far-reaching physical and social consequences.
To be more effective with finite resources in the face of increased demands, the Government’s view is that Victoria will need to focus more intensely on prevention, mitigation and preparedness. Adopting this approach - and successfully responding to emergencies - will require cooperation between all levels of government, emergency services agencies, non-government organisations, community agencies, private landholders and public sector land managers.
In the short-term, helping Victorian communities (including vulnerable households) to become more resilient in the face of future emergencies is one of the most important things the Victorian Government can do to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
Climate change and bushfires
It is no longer relevant to talk about above average fire seasons. Evidence shows we must now prepare for fire seasons that start earlier, last longer and include more extreme fire weather days. The fire and emergency services, government and - most importantly - the community, must all be prepared to play their part in managing this growing risk.
In Victoria between 2000 and 2007 there was a 62 per cent increase in the average number of fire weather warning days issued by the Bureau of Meteorology when compared with the 22 year average. During the 2006-07 fire season, there were 44 fire weather warnings, the highest number ever recorded. This exceeded the previous high of 35, recorded just four years earlier. The 2007-08 fire season was considered by many to be a ‘quiet’ season, yet our fire services attended 696 fires on public land, a 7 per cent increase on the long-term average.
Not only is the number of fires increasing, so is the severity of fire behaviour. Around the world, we are hearing about the emergence of ‘mega-fires’ - and Victoria is not immune, with the Alpine Fires of 2002-03 and the Great Divide Fires of 2006- 07 each burning more than 1 million hectares. The Alpine fires were the largest in 60 years, but just two years later they were exceeded in size by the Great Divide fires.
In early 2009, Victoria experienced a record heat wave, with three consecutive days above 43 degrees C in Melbourne. This was followed by Black Saturday, when the temperature reached 46.4 degrees C - the hottest day recorded in Melbourne since records began. Other parts of the state recorded even higher temperatures. Extremely low humidity and very high northerly winds were followed by a south-westerly change late in the day. All of this came on top of 12 years of drought. More than 170 lives were lost, over 2,000 homes destroyed and nearly 80 townships directly affected.
Worldwide, the threefold increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events between the 1960s and 1990s has been accompanied by a ninefold increase in damages. With this in mind, it is essential that we plan now.
International experts predict days of extreme fire risk will continue to increase - by 25 to 50 per cent in 2050. Such is the impact of climate change on fire risk that CSIRO models highlight the need to change the Fire Danger Index to include two new categories of risk, recognising very extreme and catastrophic fire conditions.
Fire management is a shared community problem that requires a shared community solution. We must work together - government, land managers, emergency services and the community - to increase mitigation and prevention to prepare for the challenge of climate change.
Bushfire preparedness is no longer something we can do just for the “bad” years; climate change means it is something we must do all year, every year.
Bruce Esplin
Victorian Emergency Services Commissioner
A question to consider
What are the critical steps the Victorian Government can take to ensure that we are prepared and can respond quickly and effectively to deal with increasing extreme weather events?
5.5 Health and wellbeing in a changing climate
While much of the discussion about climate change has focussed on the environmental and economic consequences of climate change, there is growing recognition that there may also be significant impacts on human health.
What we need to do
Climate change is likely to have a number of adverse impacts on the health and wellbeing of Victorians. While determining the precise health impacts will require further investigation, likely health and wellbeing impacts include:
- An increase in the number of people dying or suffering from disease and injury due to heatwaves and severe weather events such as floods, storms and bushfires
- Mental health consequences of social, economic and demographic stress and dislocation
- Emotional stresses and mental health problems in children, caused by family stresses
- An increase in food-borne infectious diseases
- An increase in vector-borne infectious diseases (for example, dengue virus and Ross River virus)
- An increase in water-borne infectious diseases and health risks from poor water quality
- Diminished food production, leading to yields, affordability and nutritional consequences
- Increases in air pollution (for example, from bushfire smoke), which may exacerbate asthma and other allergic respiratory diseases.
What we’ve already done
The Government is working to increase knowledge about the impacts of climate change on human health, including:
- Research into caring for elderly people during heatwaves
- A mapping exercise to identify those areas of Melbourne that are most vulnerable to the health impacts of heatwaves
- Working with the Bureau of Meteorology to develop a better national heat alert system
- Commencing an assessment of climate change impacts on population health
- Implementing a Victorian Heatwave Strategy, which includes pilot projects to develop heatwave response plans in local areas and commissioning a basic heatwave warning system for Melbourne.
- Victorian emergency management arrangements
- State Health Emergency Response Plan
- The Municipal Public Health Plans
- Municipal Emergency Management Plans.
The health impacts of climate change are likely to be unevenly distributed across Victoria, reflecting differences in socioeconomic circumstances, regional preparedness, infrastructure and local adaptation strategies. In particular, adverse health impacts will be greatest among people on lower incomes, the elderly, people with disabilities and the sick. People who lack access to a good standard of housing are also likely to be at a disadvantage.
These impacts will place even greater demands on Victoria’s health and community services, which will need to develop strong adaptation strategies to minimise and manage these impacts. The Government can support adaptation to these impacts by maintaining strong public health and human services infrastructure, increasing knowledge of risk factors and vulnerable populations, and promoting resilient communities and individuals. The Government can also assist by incorporating climate change responses into existing health policies and programs.
A question to consider
What help does your community need in adapting to the possible health impacts of climate change?
New risks and opportunities
The winds of climate change are already blowing across regional Victoria.
In the past, Victorian irrigators have had access to secure and reliable water entitlements. Reduced seasonal allocations of irrigation water will mean that primary producers will need new tools to manage those risks to protect permanent plantings in horticulture and provide adequate feed for dairy cows.
Warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide might improve productivity of some crops, but less frosts and an increased number of severe weather events will reduce productivity in some horticultural crops.
Some of the threats to our environment such as salinity will be reduced, but our rivers and streams will require extra care if they are to remain healthy, provide clean water for farms and towns and support our unique flora and fauna.
In some areas, there will be major land use change as traditional forms of agriculture are no longer profitable and irrigation systems are reconfigured to minimise water loss. We will need to encourage new opportunities such as carbon sequestration through forestry, but we must make sure that these trees are planted in the right place and do not put further stress on our water resources and rivers and streams.
In my region of south west Victoria, major land use change is already taking place. South of the Hamilton Highway, the dairy industry is expanding; to the north, extensive grazing areas supporting millions of sheep and cattle are changing over to cropping. Wet, cold winters have given way to dry autumns, mild winters and hot summers.
The drying climate has encouraged the expansion of the cropping industry as water logged soils are a thing of the past. However, as the winter and spring rainfall drops off, the industry needs to develop new skills to make the most of the dwindling soil moisture and emergence of new pest threats.
Farms will probably get bigger as viable and productive farmers will need more land to spread their risks across a number of enterprises and increasing mechanisation and contracting in the cropping industry will mean fewer jobs. Smaller farms will need access to off-farm income to provide for more extreme years.
Climate change is just one of the many risks that the farmers of the south west will need to manage. Farming enterprises have a strong exposure to international markets and will need to improve business skills to take account of increasing costs of inputs, such as fuel and fertilisers, and the volatility of the global prices.
Small towns, remote from large regional centres, will struggle to maintain vibrant communities as farmers adapt to climate change. Abundant water supplies and water based recreation may be a thing of the past in some areas.
Rural Victorians are very resilient but they will need to develop new skills to manage a new set of risks and make the most of opportunities that climate change presents.
Christine Forster
Member of the Ministerial Reference Council for Climate Change Adaptation, former Chairperson of the Victorian Catchment Management Council and a woolgrower in Western Victoria
