Chapter 4 Climate Impacts and Responses

Responses to Climate Change > Commonwealth response

The principal focus of the Commonwealth Government’s $1 billion climate change package is to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities. In August 2002 the Government announced its Climate Change Forward Strategy, which included a commitment to undertaking research to better understand potential impacts of climate change and develop adaptation strategies.

The Government is also pursuing bilateral partnership with other countries to address priority climate change matters, for example the Climate Action Partnership with the United States, announced in February 2002. The Partnership will work on practical approaches to deal with climate change and involves the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Departments of Commerce, Energy and State, and the Australian counterpart agencies. They are focussing on emissions measurement and accounting, climate change science and monitoring, energy technologies, agriculture and land management, and business engagement to create economically- efficient solutions. They are also collaborating with developing countries to build capacity to deal with climate change.

The Australian Greenhouse Office AGO) was established in 1998 as an agency to provide a whole-of-government approach to greenhouse matters, and to lead Australia’s greenhouse action to achieve effective and sustainable results. The AGO is responsible for coordination of domestic climate change policy and delivery of greenhouse response programs, and functions as a central point of contact for stakeholder groups. Programs such as the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory and National Carbon Accounting System, have a research focus. Through the Australian Greenhouse Science Program (AGSP), administered and coordinated by the AGO, the Commonwealth Government supports a broad base of greenhouse science research advancing the understanding of global and regional climate change, and its possible effects on Australia’s natural and managed systems.

The AGSP supports greenhouse science research in the CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre, and the National Tidal Facility Australia, as well as contributions through the Australian Academy of Science to the international programs of the International Geosphere- Biosphere Programme and its Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems project, and the World Climate Research Programme. Research conducted through CSIRO and BMRC focuses on:

• Monitoring greenhouse gases in the atmosphere;
• Developing and evaluating climate models at the global and regional scale;
• Integrating ocean and terrestrial carbon and energy cycles into climate models; and
• Providing projections of future climate change in regions across Australia.

This work is essential to support other research on climate change impacts and responses.

With support from the AGO, the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting undertakes research to:

• Increase understanding of the Australian terrestrial carbon cycle and the forces driving change;
• Predict biophysical responses to global change;
• Develop methods for accurately measuring terrestrial carbon fluxes, sources and sinks; and
• Develop innovative ways to manage the Australian carbon cycle to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The AGO is working with other Commonwealth agencies to develop a national framework for addressing climate change impacts and development of adaptation strategies across all sectors and systems. The AGO is also coordinating a cross-jurisdictional Adaptation Working Group, formed by the High Level Group on Greenhouse (HLGG) to develop options for a potential national approach to climate change impacts and adaptation as part of the national greenhouse response. Throughout 2002, the HLGG Adaptation Working Group undertook a review of the knowledge base for climate change impacts and adaptation. The Working Group identified many key knowledge gaps and future research priorities that will need to be addressed.

A national approach will provide a framework for collaboration and partnerships in climate change impacts research and identification of adaptation options, and on sharing that information across jurisdictions and sectors.

The framework is to be developed through the implementation of a national assessment of climate change impacts, and identification and implementation of targeted adaptation strategies.

A national assessment will assess Australia’s vulnerability to existing climate variability and climate change, current adaptive capacity, and lead to the development of the tools to enable integrated assessments (biophysical, social and economic dimensions of climate change) of adaptation options.

Identification of adaptation options will involve evaluating the costs and benefits of potential adaptation options, priority setting, and identification of appropriate jurisdictions and mechanisms to implement adaptation strategies.

The Commonwealth has commenced working with the States and Territories to address climate change impacts on key systems. The Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council, for example, has established a task group addressing climate change impacts on biodiversity. More information on specific responses to climate change are included in Chapter 3, Climate Services and Applications.