Our climate is changing as a result of increased greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. Further warming is inevitable, regardless of national and international efforts to reduce emissions. Projected impacts such as sea level rise, more severe heat, storm and drought events will affect almost every aspect of Australia’s natural, built, social and economic environment.

Adapting to climate change presents new challenges for policy and decision makers in both the private and public sectors. It will take time to build the skills and knowledge of how best to adapt, and for implementation of decisions to make a difference. Decisions made today that lack suitable climate foresight may create greater costs and risks in future.

This photo “Outback” is copyright © 2005 Nathan Nelson and made available under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license