ALM UNDP

Summary:

The following country profile is found in the Meister Consultants Group study: Floating Houses and Mosquito Nets: Emerging Climate Change Adaptation Strategies Around the World.

Summary

One of the major challenges facing Australia is the rising number of droughts, which affect agriculture as well as the unique biodiversity of the country. Australia‘s vulnerability to the consequences of climate change was exposed when dramatic droughts in 2002 and 2003 hit large parts of the country. In response, the Australian government passed a National Climate Change Adaptation Framework in 2007. The framework includes a range of concrete measures, including training programs for those occupational groups most affected by climate change. The individual Australian states have also started to prepare for climate change (p. 56).

Country Profile

The consequences of climate change in Australia are already apparent. During the last fifty years the average temperature has risen by about 0.9°C.123 By 2030, the Australian government expects a further rise of 0.4°C to 2°C. By 2070, an increase of 1.0 °C to 6.0 °C is considered possible. At the same time the number of hot days with temperatures of more than 35°C is projected to increase as well. Furthermore, the frequency of extreme weather events is expected to increase. The intensification of the El Niño Southern Oscillation phenomenon could result in a rising frequency of droughts in combination with individual massive rainfall events.124 As in other countries, rising sea levels will cause serious problems for the coastal regions of Australia. However, Australia faces a special challenge, in that about 80 percent of the Australian population lives within 50 kilometers or less from the coast line. This implies the need for extensive adaptation measures in infrastructure and the structure and location of cities. Australia is especially vulnerable to droughts as the country is already battling with water scarcity issues. For most parts of the country, an overall decrease in rainfall is expected; for some regions, the projections are dramatic. In the case of Melbourne, water resources are expected to decrease by 7 to 35 percent by the year 2050. For the Murray-Darling Basin, the greatest river basin in Australia, a decrease of 10 to 25 percent is expected.125 Only the north is expected to see an increase in the amount of rainfall. Overall, the number of drought months is expected to rise by up to 20 percent by 2030. The drought of 2002/2003 was the first extreme weather event that Australian scientists directly attributed to anthropogenic climate change.126 By the end of 2002, almost two in three Australians were affected by a shortage of rainfall. The expected costs to the Australian economy were about 6.6 billion Australian dollars.127 Besides the increasing risk of droughts due to falling amounts of rainfall and increasing evaporation, the degradation of water quality represents another challenge. The problem is aggravated by the rising demand for water. In some regions water sources are already depleted. Water scarcity will also have serious negative effects on Australian agriculture, which contributes 3 percent to the Australian gross domestic product. During the drought of 2002/2003 the value of agricultural production fell by almost a fifth.128 Due to the increasing heat and drought, the risk of forest and brush fires rises as well. While single events like the catastrophic fire in early 2009—in which more than 200 people died and more than 7,000 people lost their houses—cannot be directly attributed to climate change, the fires followed a period of extreme weather conditions with very high temperatures, which will become more likely given current climate change scenarios.

Source: Dr. Hans-Peter Meister, I. K., Martina Richwein, Wilson Rickerson, Chad Laurent. Additional contributors: Jeff Snell, Elisa Burchert, Florian Lux. (2009). Floating Houses and Mosquito Nets: Emerging Climate Change Adaptation Strategies Around the World. Boston: Meister Consultants Group. p. 28-29

For more detailed information (and references) refer to Floating Houses and Mosquito Nets: Emerging Climate Change Adaptation Strategies Around the World.