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There is growing demand among stakeholders across public and private institutions for spatially-explicit information regarding vulnerability to climate change at the local scale. However, the challenges associated with mapping the geography of climate change vulnerability are non-trivial, both conceptually and technically, suggesting the need for more critical evaluation of this practice. Here, we review climate change vulnerability mapping in the context of four key questions that are fundamental to assessment design. First, what are the goals of the assessment? A review of published assessments yields a range of objective statements that emphasize problem orientation or decision-making about adaptation actions. Second, how is the assessment of vulnerability framed? Assessments vary with respect to what values are assessed (vulnerability of what) and the underlying determinants of vulnerability that are considered (vulnerability to what). The selected frame ultimately influences perceptions of the primary driving forces of vulnerability as well as preferences regarding management alternatives. Third, what are the technical methods by which an assessment is conducted? The integration of vulnerability determinants into a common map remains an emergent and subjective practice associated with a number of methodological challenges. Fourth, who participates in the assessment and how will it be used to facilitate change? Assessments are often conducted under the auspices of benefiting stakeholders, yet many lack direct engagement with stakeholders. Each of these questions is reviewed in turn by drawing on an illustrative set of 45 vulnerability mapping studies appearing in the literature. A number of pathways for placing vulnerability mapping on a more robust footing are also identified.

The Queensland Renewable Energy Plan is a comprehensive economic and industry development strategy aimed at accelerating the growth of the renewable energy sector in Queensland. The Plan is broad in scope and includes a raft of initiatives aimed at addressing areas of market failure, driving regulatory reform, streamlining planning processes, removing non-economic barriers and facilitating technological innovation. It will position the state to lead the national renewable energy agenda while detailing mechanisms to attract a maximum share of investment under the expanded national Renewable Energy Target. The primary objective of the Plan is to increase the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure in Queensland. This means providing the right incentives to encourage industry to move beyond business as usual and look for new opportunities. The Queensland Government estimates that successful implementation of the Plan will help to leverage up to $3.5 billion in new investment, create up to 3,500 new jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40 million tonnes by 2020. Queensland is set to become Australia’s solar hot water state, with the Queensland Solar Hot Water Program to accelerate the installation of up to 200,000 solar hot water systems over three years. The program will reduce the household electricity bills of participants by approximately 25 per cent and decrease emissions from household electricity use by up to 30 per cent. The Program represents one of the largest and most complex industry transformation projects of its kind in Queensland. With Queensland’s renewable energy resources primarily located outside of major population centres, an important objective of the Plan is to maximise regional development opportunities. A pilot project aimed at powering the state’s most isolated communities with renewable energy alternatives will commence and be evaluated over the next year to determine whether there should be a state-wide rollout. There is significant potential for a number of solar thermal plants to be deployed in regional centres. Renewable Energy Zones will be created in areas with high quality renewable resources where access to state land is facilitated, planning processes are streamlined and incentives are developed to attract renewable energy proponents. The Plan will be finalised and implemented through the Office of Clean Energy — a ‘one stop shop’ that will provide ongoing policy and program support while dispensing expertise to assist renewable energy developers fast track projects. Initiatives will be progressed based on their ability to leverage Commonwealth and private sector funding and the extent of community and industry support.

An accurate representation of near-surface winds in global forecast models is important in the calculation of surface energy exchange, air pollution dispersion as well as in aviation and wind engineering applications. In a summary paper, Holtslag (2006) points out that a number of model errors can arise from shortcomings in the representation of the stably stratified planetary boundary layer (SBL). A recent intercomparison of Single Column Models (SCMs), which formed part of the second GEWEX Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study (GABLS2, http://www.met.wau.nl/projects/Gabls/index.htm), found a large spread of results for all model forecast parameters (Svensson and Holtslag, 2007). The greatest difference between the model simulations and observations was in the representation of the diurnal cycle of 10-metre wind speed. The amplitude of this diurnal variation was found to be significantly underpredicted with wind speeds generally too high under nighttime stable conditions. In this paper, model sensitivities to changes in the fluxprofile relationships of momentum under stably stratified conditions are investigated using a SCM version of the UK Met Office Unified Model (UM, version 6.3) that forms the atmospheric component of the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS).

The overgrowing population and the recent droughts are putting water resources under pressure and calling for new approaches for water planning and management if escalating conflicts are to be avoided and environmental degradation is to be reversed. As countries are using their water resources with growing intensity, poor rainfall increasingly leads to national water crises as water tables fall and reservoirs, wetlands and rivers empty. Global warming could cause further changes, further variability and further uncertainty. The UK Hadley Centre's global climate model was run at a spatial scale of 2·5 by 3·75° (latitude and longitude) grid squares to simulate the global climate according to scenarios of greenhouse gas concentration emission. Runs of the model assuming the emission scenario proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1995 are analysed here for the 2050s time horizon. Outputs provide estimations of climate variables, such as precipitation and temperature, at a monthly time step. Those results, assumed representative of future climatic conditions, are compared to mean monthly values representative of the current climate and expressed in terms of percentage change. The results show that, for the dry season (April–September), by the 2050s, North Africa and some parts of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Jordan and Israel, are expected to have reduced rainfall amounts of 20–25% less than the present mean values. This decrease in rainfall is accompanied by a temperature rise in those areas of between 2 and 2·75°C. For the same period, the temperature in the coastal areas of the Mediterranean countries will rise by about 1·5°C. In wintertime, the rainfall will decrease by about 10–15% but would increase over the Sahara by about 25%. Given the low rainfall rate over the Sahara, the increase by 25% will not bring any significant amount of rain to the region. In wintertime, the temperature in the coastal areas will also increase but by only 1·5°C on average, while inside the region it will increase by 1·75–2·5°C. In southern Africa (Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa), results suggest an increase of the annual average temperature ranging between 1·5 and 2·5°C in the south to between 2·5 and 3°C in the north. The summer range is between 1·75 and 2·25°C in the south, and increases towards the north to between 2·75 and 3·0°C while the winter range is between 1·25 and 2°C in the south, and increases towards the north to between 2·5 and 2·75°C. On the other hand, the annual average will decrease by 10–15% in the south and by 5–10% in the north. The annual average decrease is 10%. However, some places will have an increase i.e. by 5–20% in South Africa in wintertime. In the Taklimakan region (Tarim Basin) west of China, the annual average temperature is shown to increase by 1·75–2·5°C. Annual average rainfall should increase by 5–>25% in most of the region but decrease by 5–10% in some small parts. In summer, an increase by 5–15% is indicated in most of the region, and an increase by up to 25% or more during the wintertime. In the Thar Desert (India–Pakistan–Afghanistan), estimations suggest that the annual average increase in temperature ranges from 1·75 to 2·5°C, ranging from 1·5 to 2·25°C in winter and from 2 to 2·5°C in summer. Annual average precipitation is shown to decrease by 5–25% in the region. The winter will have values closer to the annual average but the summer will have more decrease and most of the region will see a decrease closer to 25%. In the Aral Sea basin (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), estimates suggest an annual average increase in temperature ranging from 1·75 to 2·25°C, higher in summer (between 2 and 2·75°C) than in winter (between 1·5 and 2°C). Rainfall should increase by 5–20% annually, in summer increasing by 5–10% in the north but decreasing by up to 5% in the south, while in wintertime, both south and north should undergo increases of 5–10% and 20–25%, respectively. In Australia, results indicate an increase in the annual average temperature ranges of 1–1·5°C in the south to 2·5–2·75°C in the north, slightly higher during the summer than in the winter. The summer range is between 1 and 2°C in the south and increases towards the north to 2·5–3·0°C while the winter range is between 1 and 1·5°C in the south, and increases towards the north to between 2 and 2·25°C. Rainfall annual average is shown to decrease by 20–25% in the south and by 5–10% in the north. Given the above-mentioned facts, in order to meet the water demands in the next century, some dams and water infrastructure will be built in some countries and a new paradigm by rethinking the water use with the aim of increasing the productive use of water will have to be adopted. Two approaches are needed: increasing the efficiency with which current needs are met and increasing the efficiency with which water is allocated among different uses. In addition, non-conventional sources of water supply such as reclaimed, recycled water and desalinated brackish water or seawater is expected to play an important role.

Past societies have reacted when they understood that their own activities were causing deleterious environmental change by controlling or modifying the offending activities. The scientific evidence has now become overwhelming that human activities, especially the combustion of fossil fuels, are influencing the climate in ways that threaten the well-being and continued development of human society. If humanity is to learn from history and to limit these threats, the time has come for stronger control of the human activities that are changing the fundamental conditions for life on Earth. To decide on effective control measures, an understanding of how human activities are changing the climate, and of the implications of unchecked climate change, needs to be widespread among world and national leaders, as well as in the public. The purpose of this report is to provide, for a broad range of audiences, an update of the newest understanding of climate change caused by human activities, the social and environmental implications of this change, and the options available for society to respond to the challenges posed by climate change. This understanding is communicated through six key messages.

Dengue transmission in Australia is currently restricted to Queensland, where the vector mosquito Aedes aegypti is established. Locally acquired infections have been reported only from urban areas in the north-east of the state, where the vector is most abundant. Considerable attention has been drawn to the potential impact of climate change on dengue distribution within Australia, with projections for substantial rises in incidence and distribution associated with increasing temperatures. However, historical data show that much of Australia has previously sustained both the vector mosquito and dengue viruses. Although current vector distribution is restricted to Queensland, the area inhabited by A. aegypti is larger than the disease-transmission areas, and is not restricted by temperature (or vector-control programs); thus, it is unlikely that rising temperatures alone will bring increased vector or virus distribution. Factors likely to be important to dengue and vector distribution in the future include increased dengue activity in Asian and Pacific nations that would raise rates of virus importation by travellers, importation of vectors via international ports to regions without A. aegypti, higher rates of domestic collection and storage of water that would provide habitat in urban areas, and growing human populations in northern Australia. Past and recent successful control initiatives in Australia lend support to the idea that well resourced and functioning surveillance programs, and effective public health intervention capabilities, are essential to counter threats from dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases. Models projecting future activity of dengue (or other vector-borne disease) with climate change should carefully consider the local historical and contemporary data on the ecology and distribution of the vector and local virus transmission.

The challenges in developing technology for the capture and storage of CO2 from coal, oil and gas power generation, as well as those associated with the storage of nuclear waste, are widely regarded as solvable. According to proponents of clean coal, oil and gas technologies, as well as the proponents of nuclear technology, it is only a matter of time and resources to find a solution to their waste problems. Similarly, the Australian Government argues that our main efforts need to be concentrated on clean coal technologies, as well as considering the nuclear option. However, when it comes to the challenges associated with renewable energy technologies, like intermittency of wind generated grid power, storage of electricity from renewable energy and so on, there seems to be an attitude amongst Australian energy planners that these challenges represent insurmountable technical and financial problems, and will, at least in the short to medium term, prevent them from becoming a viable alternative to coal, oil, gas and uranium based energy technologies.

Global climate warming is expected to cause systematic shifts in the distribution of species and consequently increase extinction risk. Conservation managers must be able to detect, measure and accurately predict range shifts in order to mitigate impacts on biodiversity. However, important responses to climate change may go unnoticed or be dismissed if we fail to collect sufficient baseline data and apply the most sensitive analytical tests. Here we use randomizations of a contemporary data set on rainforest birds of north-eastern Australia to quantify the sensitivity of three measures for assessing range shifts along altitudinal gradients. We find that smaller range shifts are detectable by analysing change in the mean altitude of presence records rather than upper or lower range boundaries. For a moderate survey effort of 96 surveys, measurements of change in the mean altitude of 34 species have the capacity to provide strong inference for a mean altitudinal range shift as small as 40 m across the species assemblage. We also show that range shifts measured at range boundaries can be potentially misleading when differences in sampling effort between contemporary and historical data sets are not taken into account.

The Federal Treasury has engaged SKM MMA, part of the Sinclair Knight Merz Group, to undertake an assessment of the cost and benefits to the electricity market of a national carbon pricing mechanism. The analysis has been directed towards providing insights into the economic costs and benefits to the electricity sector, where cost is defined in terms of a reduction in the productivity of resource use in the sector and benefit is defined in terms of abatement of greenhouse gas emissions. Distributional impacts, such as changes to customer costs, are also examined. In this report we describe the impacts of the carbon pricing mechanism on the electricity and fuel markets. Section 2 outlines the methodology employed to estimate the impacts. Section 3 summarises the key assumptions used in the modelling, and it also contains a description of the five scenarios and nine sensitivities modelled and an explanation of various other policy measures independent of carbon pricing which are relevant to the exercise. Sections 4 and 5 present and discuss the key results of the analysis, including: – Impact on costs of generation – Impact on generation mix – Impact on electricity prices Section 6 presents the results of the nine sensitivity studies also undertaken.

One of the aims of developing new climate projections is to better address the requirements of stakeholders—particularly those who require less uncertainty and/or probabilistic information to work with. Projections are continually updated over time as more, and newer, climate model simulations of the future become available but this can introduce problems when it comes to interpreting large samples with differing results. Regional projections of rainfall are characterised by a high level of uncertainty, partly because of different sensitivities of the different models. Some models can be demonstrated to perform relatively poorly when assessed by their ability to simulate present-day means and variability and here we show that the uncertainty in model projections can potentially be reduced when the projection from these models are either discounted or ignored entirely. When applied to the Murray Darling Basin of south east Australia, it is possible to demonstrate a clustering of the results from the better performing models. These indicate that the rainfall changes to be expected as a result of increased greenhouse gas concentrations into the future are more likely to be at the drier end of the full set of model results. This occurs because the better performing models indicate decreases in winter and spring which are significantly different to the changes indicated by the other models. These results suggest that there are compelling reasons for discounting, if not entirely dismissing, some model results based on their failure to satisfy some basic performance criteria.

The 2011 State of the Environment (SoE) report aims to give Australians the best possible and clearest answers to three basic questions: • What is the current condition of the Australian environment? • What are the risks the Australian environment faces and are we doing enough to protect it? • Where is the Australian environment headed? Much of Australia’s environment and heritage is in good shape, or improving. Other parts are in poor condition or deteriorating. Some of the pressures on our environment arise from past decisions (or even just bad luck) that have left an ongoing legacy of impact. Our changing climate, and growing population and economy are now confronting us with new challenges.

It has been demonstrated that the Earth is warming and climatic parameters are changing. In Western Australia, the south west has been experiencing rainfall reductions for several decades and other areas across the State have experienced droughts and atypical events. It is now generally accepted that Western Australia will experience a climate in the near future that is drier, hotter and has more extreme weather events than it had in the past. The trends in climatic change will impact human populations through their effects on the physical and biological components of the environment. Global efforts are being made to mitigate climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However it has been accepted that some change will occur and that individuals and communities will need to adapt to these changed environmental circumstances to avoid adverse consequences. Of significance are the potential health impacts on people in Western Australia. The severity of possible impacts on communities will be dependent on our ability to adapt to situations and environments that may be quite different from those we have now. The Department of Health and the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health Impact Assessment at Curtin University recognised that the Health Impact Assessment process provides an appropriate means by which the potential impacts of climate change in WA can be initially assessed. A Health Impact Assessment of Climate Change Project was undertaken in collaboration with Government and other stakeholders to consider the implications of climate change on the health of the people of Western Australia and to develop a range of adaptive responses to provide Government with the basis for future decision making. The Project was undertaken in two phases. Phase One was the identification of the potential health impacts that could arise given a particular set of climatic situations in the future, consideration of our current coping capacity and identification of health related vulnerabilities of people, regions, infrastructure and the economy to specific climatic and environmental events. The second phase entailed a risk assessment of the health impacts on communities including specific reference to vulnerability, and the development of adaptations which could be used to mitigate the identified impacts. It was recognised that the lack of detailed knowledge of future climatic conditions in Western Australia, the future distribution and densities of populations and the development of associated infrastructure did not allow for a comprehensive and quantitative assessment of health impacts. What emerged from this project, however, was a good understanding of current activities, their adequacy with respect to health and a range of adaptations and required supporting research. The outcomes have been designed to provide a proactive approach to the protection of the health of communities in Western Australia from any adverse environmental impacts associated with climate change. They form the basis for future planning and decision making by Governments and other relevant sectors and adaptive responses that can be taken up by society in Western Australia.

With weakening prospects of prompt mitigation, it is increasingly likely that the world will experience 4°C and more of global warming. In such a world, adaptation decisions that have long lead times or that have implications playing out over many decades become more uncertain and complex. Adapting to global warming of 4°C cannot be seen as a mere extrapolation of adaptation to 2°C; it will be a more substantial, continuous and transformative process. However, a variety of psychological, social and institutional barriers to adaptation are exacerbated by uncertainty and long timeframes, with the danger of immobilizing decision-makers. In this paper, we show how complexity and uncertainty can be reduced by a systematic approach to categorizing the interactions between decision lifetime, the type of uncertainty in the relevant drivers of change and the nature of adaptation response options. We synthesize a number of issues previously raised in the literature to link the categories of interactions to a variety of risk-management strategies and tactics. Such application could help to break down some barriers to adaptation and both simplify and better target adaptation decision-making. The approach needs to be tested and adopted rapidly.

Australia’s unique biodiversity, already under threat from a wide range of stressors, now faces a further threat from a rapidly changing climate. Effects of climate change are already discernible at the genetic,species and ecosystem levels in many parts of the continent and coastal seas. Biodiversity is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. Many of Australia’s most valued and iconic natural areas, and the rich biodiversity they support, are among the most vulnerable to climate change. They include the Great Barrier Reef, south-western Western Australia, the Australian Alps, the Queensland Wet Tropics and the Kakadu wetlands. Much is at stake in dealing effectively with the climate change challenge. Beyond the great richness it lends to our most iconic natural areas, biodiversity underpins our quality of life, our economy and much of our national identity. The magnitude and rate of climate change pose particularly severe challenges for natural ecosystems. The interaction of climate change with existing stresses – such as land clearing, fire and invasive species – and the different migration rates of species and consequent formation of novel ecosystems, add further levels of complexity. Significant changes are required in policy and management for biodiversity conservation to meet these types of challenges. First, management objectives for the future aimed at maintaining all species in their present locations and ecosystems in their present composition will no longer be appropriate. A management priority must be to maintain the provision of ecosystem services through a diversity of well-functioning ecosystems, some of which may have no present-day equivalent. Second, a central strategy is giving ecosystems the best possible chance to adapt by enhancing their resilience. Approaches to building resilience include managing appropriate connectivity of fragmented ecosystems, enhancing the National Reserve System, protecting key refugia, implementing more effective control of invasive species, and developing appropriate fire and other disturbance management regimes. In some instances, ecological engineering will need to be considered. Third, risk assessments are a key approach to identify especially vulnerable species and ecosystems. Riskspreading conservation strategies, coupled with active adaptive management approaches, are an effective way to deal with an uncertain climatic future. Fourth, reorientation of policy and legislative frameworks, and reform of institutional and governance architecture, are essential. These actions can support novel strategies for biodiversity conservation – such as integrated regional approaches tailored for regional differences in environments, climate change impacts and socio-economic trends. Finally, even with much more effective policy and management strategies, there is a limit to how much we can enhance the adaptive capacity of natural ecosystems (Figure 1). Without rapid and effective mitigation of climate change, there is a high risk of an accelerating wave of extinctions throughout the 21st century and beyond.

• The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (Hennessy et al. 2007; IPCC 2007b) concluded that the agriculture sector in Australia is particularly vulnerable to climate changes, with potential negative impacts on the amount of produce, quality of produce, reliability of production and on the natural resource base on which agriculture depends. This vulnerability requires high levels of adaptive responses. • The benefits and positive opportunities presented by climate change may start to peak during the initial stages (possibly mid century), but the negative impacts may lag behind, becoming progressively stronger over time and with greater build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Caution is therefore needed not to underestimate the long-term challenge of climate change based on initial, more moderate experiences. • This review has identified a number of potential options for Australian agriculture to adapt to climate change. Many of these options are extensions or enhancements of existing activities that are aimed at managing the impacts of existing climate variability and improving the sustainability and efficiency in the use of natural resources. • However, less than a dozen of these potential adaptation options have been evaluated for their utility in reducing the risks or taking advantage of climate change impacts. Only a couple of adaptations have been evaluated in relation to the broader costs and benefits of their use. • These few analyses show that practicable and financially-viable adaptations will have very significant benefits in ameliorating risks of negative climate changes and enhancing opportunities where they occur. The benefit to cost ratio of undertaking R&D into these adaptations appears to be very large (indicative ratios greatly exceed 100:1). • A key recommendation is thus to progress some more adaptation studies which analyse the costs and benefits of implementation of adaptations (including socio-economic aspects as well as potential feedbacks through greenhouse emissions). This R&D needs to be undertaken in a participatory way with industry groups so as to deal effectively with their key concerns, draw on their valuable expertise and also contribute to enhanced knowledge in the agricultural community. • There will always be uncertainty about future climate change impacts due to highly uncertain levels of future greenhouse emissions; fundamental uncertainty in the science of the global climate system; uncertainty about how specific changes in climate will affect agricultural/ ecological / social systems, and uncertainty in how communities will respond to these changes. • Uncertainties are greatly compounded by the complexities of scaling down to finer scales, so generalities about broad-scale impacts of climate change are difficult to translate into specific predications for particular management units (farms / properties / marine areas). Instead, riskbased approaches should be used, focusing on the range of plausible impacts that could occur, rather than potentially-misleading ‘average predictions’. • Given this inherent uncertainty, the need is to develop enhanced adaptive capacity in agricultural systems (including socio-economic and cultural/institutional structures) to cope with a broad range of possible changes. Synergies with existing Commonwealth policies such as self-reliance in drought and their supporting programs such as Advancing Australian Agriculture as well as with institutions such as Landcare are needed develop this capacity. • To cope with uncertainty in projected climate but the certainty of ongoing technological, cultural and institutional change, there is a need to use an active adaptive management approach for adaptation. This requires directed change in management or policy that is monitored, analysed and learnt from, so as to iteratively and effectively adjust to ongoing climate changes. Such an approach has profound implications for capacity-building, R&D, monitoring and policy. • Successful adaptation to climate change will need both strategic preparation and tactical response strategies. Adaptation measures will have to reflect and enhance current ‘best-practices’ designed to cope with adverse conditions such as drought. Adoption of these new practices will require, amongst other things 1) confidence that the climate really is changing, 2) the motivation to change to avoid risks or use opportunities, 3) demonstrated technologies to enable change to occur, 4) support during transitions to new management or new land use, 5) altered transport and market infrastructure and 6) an effective monitoring and evaluation system to learn which adaptations work well, which do not and why. • Many potential adaptation options are common across industries. These common or crossindustry themes are outlined immediately below. Industry-specific knowledge gaps and priority action areas are summarised in the next table (with more detailed tables provided at the end of each chapter). The final two synthesis tables summarize regional variation in terrestrial and marine climate change impacts.

In this study, we present climate change projections based on the results from 23 climate model simulations performed for the IPCC 4th Assessment Report. Statistical methods are used to test how well each model simulated observed average (1961-1990) patterns of mean sea-level pressure, temperature and rainfall over the Australian region. The 15 models with the highest pattern correlations and smallest rms errors are identified. The 21st century simulations are driven by the IPCC ‘SRES’ greenhouse gas and aerosol emission scenarios. Using the 15 best climate models, annual and seasonal average projections of Australian rainfall and temperature change are derived for various decades. Results are highlighted for 2030 and 2070 for comparison with projections published by CSIRO in 2001. The projections are expressed as ranges, incorporating uncertainty in both global warming and regional differences between climate simulations over Australia. Inland regions show greater warming, compared to coastal regions. There are large decreases in the number of days below 0°C and large increases in the number of days above 35°C or 40°C. Rainfall changes are more complex than temperature changes. Although increases and decreases in rainfall are projected in the future, decreases dominate the overall pattern, especially in the south in winter and spring. CSIRO’s earlier projections, based on nine climate models, appear robust when compared with the updated projections. The patterns and magnitudes of warming are similar, although the updated projections have slightly less warming in coastal regions. The pattern of rainfall change is also similar, particularly the strong decrease in winter and spring over southern Australia, but the updated projections give a more widespread tendency for increases in summer in eastern Australia and a clearer tendency for decreases in autumn in Queensland and the eastern Northern Territory.

In this report, ABARE’s latest long-term projections of Australian energy consumption, production and trade are presented, with an outlook horizon of 2029-30. These projections are not intended as predictions or forecasts, but as indications of potential changes in Australian energy consumption, production and trade patterns given the assumptions used in the report. In undertaking these projections, ABARE included government policies that have already been enacted and those that can reasonably be expected to be adopted over the projection timeframe. On this basis, the Renewable Energy Target (RET) and a 5 per cent carbon emissions reduction below 2000 levels by 2020 have been incorporated in the projections, as well as other existing government initiatives. The design of the carbon emissions reduction target modelled in this report is consistent with the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) as specified in the White Paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) released on 15 December 2008 and amended on 4 May 2009. In November 2009, the Australian Government announced further measures related to assistance for electricity generators, households and energy-intensive trade-exposed industries under the proposed CPRS. These measures will clearly have distributional impacts and provide assistance to affected parties. However, it is unlikely that these measures will have a major effect on the behaviour of respective agents in the long run, given the incentives inherent in the CPRS for long-term structural adjustment to reduce the carbon intensity of the Australian economy.

This paper reviews land based transport related issues from considerations of climate change adaptation in Australia. The two main issues for climate change adaptation are sea level rise and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. These issues are considered in the paper. It considers the risks to existing transport infrastructure and the resulting considerations necessary in planning new infrastructure, transport systems operations under changing climatic conditions, and potential changes in travel behaviour. The use and capability of regional rural networks in emergency evacuation planning emerges as one particular area for further research. More generally, recognition of the risks associated with climate change is required for better planning of new infrastructure and mitigating potential damage to existing infrastructure. Climate change poses a significant risk to infrastructure and its owners, managers and operators. There is a need to undertake research into the likely impacts of climate change on Australia’s transport infrastructure, establish the categories of infrastructure most at risk and outline opportunities for adaptation responses, and examine the current governance structures. Then the administrative, legal and other issues that may impact on climate change adaptation can be identified.

Climate change information required for impact studies is of a much finer spatial scale than climate models can directly provide. Statistical downscaling models (SDMs) are commonly used to fill this scale gap. SDMs are based on the view that the regional climate is conditioned by two factors: (1) the large scale climatic state and (2) local physiographic features. A SDM based on an analogue approach has been developed within the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and applied to ten regions covering the entire Australian continent. Six surface predictands (daily minimum and maximum temperatures, dew-point minimum and maximum temperatures, total rainfall and pan evaporation) were modelled. The skill of the SDMs was evaluated by comparing reconstructed and observed series using a range of metrics: the first two moments of the series, and the ability to reproduce day-to-day variability, inter-annual variability, and long-term trends. Once optimized, the SDMs were applied to a selection of global climate models which contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th assessment report released in 2007. A user-friendly graphical interface has been developed to facilitate dissemination of the SDM results and provides a range of options for users to obtain tailored information. Once the projections are calculated for the places of interest, graphical outputs are displayed. These can be downloaded jointly with the underlying data, allowing users to manipulate the data in their own applications. This document provides the user with both a description of the SDM and a user manual of the Graphical User Interface (GUI). The first part describes the scientific background: the objectives of downscaling and how the BoM SDM was developed, as well as the predictands obtained, how the model was optimised and evaluated and the global climate models used for projections. The second part is a comprehensive documentation of the GUI: its structure, usage and the results provided. The appendices provide more details about the optimised parameters of the model, its skill, the GUI Perl scripts and directory structure, the SDM structure and routines, and the graphical outputs of the GUI. The last appendix illustrates the benefits of the SDM via two case studies: projected maximum temperature in Mildura and sub-grid heterogeneity.

Objective: To assess the impact of climate variability on the transmission of Ross River virus (RRV) infection-the most common and most widespread mosquito-borne disease in Australia. Material and Methods: A range of geographic information system (GIS) techniques and ecologic time-series models was performed to assess the impact of climate variability on RRV transmission in Queensland, Australia. Results: RRV disease has strong spatial and temporal patterns, as mosquito density and longevity depend on a number of environmental and ecologic factors (eg, temperature, precipitation and mosquito-breeding habitats). RRV transmission has strong seasonal cycles and exhibits a substantial geographic variation. At the state level, rainfall, temperature, and tidal levels were generally important environmental determinants in the transmission cycles of RRV disease. Temperature appeared to be a more important predictor in the coastal region than the inland region, whereas rainfall seemed to be more important in the inland area than the coastal area. In some areas (eg, Brisbane), rainfall and sea tides directly influence the density of mosquitoes such as Culex annulirostris and Aedes vigilax respectively, which then affects the transmission patterns of RRV. A time-series forecasting model shows that, in Brisbane, 85% and 95% of the variance in the RRV transmission was accounted for by rainfall and mosquito density, respectively. Conclusions: It is possible to improve the effectiveness of public health responses through the prediction of Ross River virus disease epidemics with GIS-based spatiotemporal models integrating climate and disease surveillance data. An assessment of factors predicting RRV disease transmission will help local authorities identify periods of high risk, optimizing the provision of additional mosquito control measures and community education.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified Australia as among the developed nations most at risk from climate change effects. Key tourism icon destinations and the tourism sector generally have been identified as being particularly at risk. This paper reports on an interdisciplinary, multi-case study approach to assess tourism stakeholders' knowledge of, and approaches to, climate change adaptation and to explore the potential for building a self-assessment toolkit that can be exported to other tourism destinations. This study examined existing knowledge on anticipated biophysical changes and, through primary research (stakeholder interviews and social learning workshops), gauged the expected adaptive approaches of destination communities and the tourism sector to these changes for 2020, 2050 and 2070. The facilitated workshops generated a common set of adaptation strategies across a diverse set of tourist destinations. A key finding from the workshops is that the tourism sector is not yet ready to invest in climate change adaptation because of the perceived uncertainties. Ongoing leadership for such measures were seen to rest with the public sector, especially local authorities. Whether such assessments can be self-generated or require specialist facilitation remains open to debate.

Following discussions within the Tourism and Climate Change Taskforce in 2007 – 2008, the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (STCRC) decided to undertake a study of the potential adaptations to climate change in five key tourist destinations in Australia: Kakadu National Park, the Cairns region (including the Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics rainforest), the Blue Mountains, the Barossa Valley and the Victorian Alps. The Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism provided funding support for the study. The overall aim of this project was to examine the climate change impacts (economic and non-economic) on the tourism sector in five Australian regional tourism destinations (Figure 1) over the next 10, 40 and 60 years (2020, 2050 and 2070). The goal of the project was to build a framework to inform and prioritise adaptation strategies which can be undertaken by destinations and tourism businesses. To do this, the climate change vulnerability of each destination was assessed, with a focus on the potential impacts on tourism infrastructure, activities and operational costs. The project was intended to ascertain the adequacy of available data and information to enable research-specific findings. This research project has examined existing knowledge on anticipated biophysical changes and, through primary research (stakeholder interviews and social learning workshops), gauged the expected adaptive approaches of destination communities and the tourism sector to these changes for 2020, 2050 and 2070, and then estimated likely economic consequences. It is expected that key outcomes will be an early assessment of the adaptive capacity of tourism communities, estimates of costs and the development of a robust research agenda based on refining an initial model of tourism, business and destination adaptation. This technical report is divided into four distinct parts. Part 1 (Chapters 1 and 2) provides an introduction to the project in a global context, including the aims and objectives of the study and an introduction to the five case study regions. It then describes the methodology applied to ascertain the non-economic impacts of climate change at four of the five case study regions (Chapter 2). The five case studies are then presented as five separate chapters in Part 2 (Chapters 3 – 7). The Victorian Alps case study was derived from a separate, larger multi-sector study of climate change impacts and adaptation in the region, and the authors have provided a summary of their work in relation to the tourism sector in Chapter 7 of this technical report. It should be stressed that the approach and methodology in that study were different to the other four case studies, and this presents some limitations when integrating across case studies in Part 4 of this report. Part 3 (Chapter 8) deals with the economic impacts of climate change across the five destinations, based on The Enormous Regional Model (TERM). This may be considered a preliminary assessment at the case study level of the expected impacts of climate change on Gross Regional Product and projected rates of growth in domestic and international tourism for 2020, 2050 and 2070. In Part 4 (Chapters 9 and 10) the findings across the five case study regions are integrated and synthesised, and a future agenda is set for applying the approach to other Australian tourism regions. Chapter 9 provides a discussion and integration across the Kakadu, Cairns, Blue Mountains and Barossa Valley case study regions. In particular, themes for mitigation and adaptation are considered that have emerged from the separate case studies that might have wider applicability across other Australian tourist destinations. Finally, Chapter 10 provides recommendations from the study for future research in the area of climate change and adaptation in tourism destinations. The chapter also provides suggestions and guidance for how this might achieved in a practical sense, in terms of a tourism sector ‘tool kit’.

Heat waves with extreme temperatures are increasingly being recognised as an important public health problem, together with a need to develop appropriate public health interventions. Although heat waves cannot be prevented, their harmful health consequences can be reduced by the development and implementation of early warning systems that target vulnerable regions and populations. This is particularly important for Australian society, given its ageing population structure and vulnerable characteristics of ageing people. It is crucial that a heat health warning system (HHWS) for an ageing population be based on accurate information about the location of vulnerable people, their access to communication technology, the facilities available to them and their ability to respond effectively to a HHWS. This accurate information is critical for the development and implementation of such a system. More importantly, the right stakeholders should be identified, and public’s perception and knowledge about heat waves should be evaluated.

This study investigated the potential impact of climate change on the heating and cooling (H/C) energy requirements of residential houses in five regional climates varying from cold to hot humid in Australia. Nine General Circulation Models (GCMs) under three carbon emission scenarios were applied to project the local climate. It was found that significant climate change impact on H/C energy requirements may occur within the lifespan of existing housing stock. The total H/C energy requirement of newly constructed 5 star houses is projected to vary significantly in the range of −26% to 101% by 2050 and −48% to 350% by 2100 given the A1B, A1FI and 550 ppm stabilisation emission scenarios, dependent on the existing regional climate. In terms of percentage change, houses in an H/C balanced temperate climate such as Sydney is found to be the most sensitive to climate change, potentially posing more pressures on the capacity of local energy supply. It was also found that energy efficient or high star rating houses may experience less absolute changes in energy requirement. However, they appear to experience higher percentage changes in the total H/C energy requirement. Especially in the regions with an H/C balanced temperate climate such as Sydney, the increase in the total H/C energy requirement is projected up to 120% and 530% for a 7 star house when the global temperature increases 2 °C and 5 °C respectively. The high sensitivity to global warming may need to be considered in the planning of future energy requirement for energy efficient buildings.

Climate change is the greatest ecological, economic, and social challenge of our time. Climate change research over many years shows links between human activities and warming of the atmosphere and oceans. This warming has caused changes to the climate system, such as changes in rain and wind patterns, and reductions in Arctic sea ice. Climate change adaptation involves taking action to adapt to climate change and to plan and prepare for the risk of future change. Climate change mitigation refers to actions that aim to limit greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, either by reducing emissions or by increasing the amount of carbon dioxide stored in natural sinks. This publication provides the latest scientific knowledge on a series of climate change topics relevant to Australia and the world. It draws on peer-reviewed literature contributed to by thousands of researchers.