From schoolyard parasols in schools in Lyon to drought relief for Spanish farmers and German requirements for cooler cities and more shade, Europe is facing up to an urgent and accelerating need for climate adaptation.
A European Environment Agency assessment from March this year found the cost of economically efficient adaptation to a 1.5-degree global temperature rise — already very unlikely — is around €40 billion a year for the EU and the UK; for 2 degrees warming, it doubles to at least €80 billion a year. Higher temperatures double the cost again.
Given the failure to limit CO2 emissions to prevent significant global heating, adaptation will force its way on to government agendas everywhere, with every drought, every flood, every fire and heatwave. The Morrison government released a mealy-mouthed national climate resilience and adaptation strategy in 2021 and funded a $600 million “Preparing Australia Program” (with grants controlled by sports rorter Bridget McKenzie) after heavy criticism of Scott Morrison going missing in action during the Black Summer bushfires.
It also provided a $10 billion guarantee to set up a cyclone reinsurance pool to cover soaring insurance premiums in LNP-held northern Queensland seats (LNP MPs may deny the existence of climate change, but they’re very worried about the uninsurability of their electorates due to increased cyclones).
Flood protection infrastructure, reducing urban heat and increasing urban greening, addressing uninsurability, managing coastal erosion, preventing and fighting bushfires and improving health services will all come with eye-popping numbers across all three levels of government in Australia. So far, what limited adaptation measures have been funded have been undertaken on a standard fiscal basis via grant programs or providing a Commonwealth guarantee. But the dramatic expansion in adaptation funding that will be required as the failure to constrain global heating to manageable levels becomes clearer raises a real fiscal issue. Who should pay?
In the absence of a direct carbon pricing mechanism, the answer at the moment is taxpayers. Already faced with rapidly increasing health, aged care, NDIS and defence costs, the billions needed for effective adaptation will also have to be found within federal, state and local budgets.
If the coming summer produces a Europe-like moment of awareness that we’ve reached a climate tipping point, governments are likely to come under further pressure to accelerate adaptation funding, especially for priority projects such as flood protection.
Meanwhile, our biggest fossil fuel exporters continue to generate huge profits from the sale of Australian gas and coal, even if both coal and gas prices have come well down from their post-Ukraine peaks of 2022. With the petroleum resource rent tax still unfit for purpose despite some tweaking by the Albanese government, the companies most directly responsible for Australia’s contribution to the climate crisis are not contributing to funding the costs of adapting to the climate they’ve helped engineer.
It’s not a pressing political problem now for the government, but when El Niño begins exacting its usual toll of fires, drought and heatwaves in Australia, the question of who pays to clean up the damage and to prevent or minimise future climate change-fuelled disasters will become far more relevant. And the guilty parties should be in the spotlight.
Bernard, such a silly question. We will pay. As we always do. Australia is ruled by big biz and no-one ever disputes their right to rake it in. We at the bottom of the corporate pile, ie the consumers, are urged to do more with less, or get a better job, or make better life decisions, or marry well, or go live on a private island, or any one of a dozen different stupid suggestions that emanate out of the rear end of the corporate and political poobahs.
No-one says to those people, reduce your obscene salaries and pay your freaking taxes like everyone else, and pay the real cost to the environment and your own children, of every decision that further endangers the world.
Lalala Land is about to go up in flames and still no-one up in those ivory towers wants to give up their privileged lives, even if their kids fry.
There is no political will to change.
Maybe there will be an en masse dropping of the penny, and the hordes will get angry enough to revolt against our privileged political leaders, who have shown very little leadership.
Earlier this month, a town in Algeria recorded an overnight minimum temperature of 39.6° C…
And Antarctica is missing a Western Australia sized chunk of sea ice…
https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/158t71i/daily_standard_deviations_for_antarctic_sea_ice/
Crazy that some people (hello Mum, hello Dad) still don’t accept the reality of a warming planet!
Let’s not underestimate the power of apathetic voters. If there were votes in reducing the exorbitant salaries of politicians, they’d be volunteering to take massive pay cuts. The reality is, voters do not care about it. Not one jot. They will care when it is too late but by then they’ll be too broken by the effort to survive in this perfect storm of global warming and job losses due to AI taking over vast numbers of jobs. Pass the popcorn.
Because the narrative is controlled by mainstream media and the corporations that decide what the content will be i think there is a perfectly reasonable explanation as to the apathy. Have any of you fellow subscribers or journo’s ever immersed yourselves in it, all the ads as well?. It is revolting .
Global heating is far more pressing than AI which I’ve come to see as a distraction from the main game. (Keep our minds otherwise occupied while the water boils).
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Polls on concern about climate change consistently give high “concern” votes but what we have from both our major parties and fossil fuel is a sustained and active campaign to play it down. If we had those in power explaining what will happen with Climate Change and what we can do I have to think things would change quickly.
As long as the massive majority of our population keep voting for do nothing labor or libs, why should they lift a finger. A non stop propaganda campaign by our main stream media will keep the public voting against their own interest for at least the next few election cycles. It’s difficult to figure when things will get bad enough in housing, cost of living or climate change for the hoi polloi to finally figure it out. Very depressing.
Australian elites in politics, media, business and public sector have wasted nearly two decades by falling for (or happily accepting) standard fossil fuel techniques of denial, delay and deflect to ‘immigration’ and ‘population growth’ with supposed economic costs (nativist libertarian?); too easy… and very lax.
LOL. This is comically untrue.
You are in opposites world. There has been practically zero elite opposition to population growth and high levels of immigration for decades. Even the Greens dropped it as an environmental factor after Hanson poisoned the well in the ’90s.
Indeed, any suggestion that the neoliberal insistence on MOAR PEOPLE for MOAR GDP and MOAR GROWTH might have some negative consequences would most likely get you kicked out of the “elites” club in short order.
You could literally count the number of “Australian elites in politics, media, business and public sector” who genuinely criticised high immigration and population growth on one hand. With fingers left over.
Lifted from the tobacco lobby text book, and a whole raft of other malfeasance by governments and corporations.. as you well know, ozone layer anyone?
And then we call it ‘democracy’ – rule by the people for the people!
Who pays for climate damage? Our beautiful planet.
It’s futile to imagine we can buy our way out of this calamity regardless of who pays what & how much. This is the reward for greed & stupidity.
Yep, greed of the powerful abd stupidity of the voters.
I know what you mean, but the planet and humans at the top of the food chain don’t actually give a stuff. It’s the rest of humanity who will suffer the hardship of global boiling.
Agree, we need to protect our beautiful planet and beautiful children now. Victoria threw a dime in the hat today.
Maybe if we go back to wholesome existence concentrating on the wellness of Earth that would help also.
We had a chat at the Cafe the other day about roast chooks at the supermarket. 10 bucks for a roast chook. Chook has been raised, slaughtered, plucked and gutted, bagged, refrigerated, sprayed, transported, delivered, stored in refrigeration,stuffed, roasted, bagged bought and checked out, then driven 10 kms home. The question was, how much is a live chook at the farm gate worth? Well we figured about 2 bucks. So much waste and pollution generated for a meal.
If I walked down the road to a chicken farm I would pay 10 bucks for a plucked and gutted chook.
We need to localise food production now as we are in “Global Boiling”
I would take up arms to protect mother Earth!
Yes sure, but we can still choose and act to prevent 1.5 degrees becoming 4 or 5 degrees. Being fatalistic is an indulgence.
Anyone with half an eye on the northern hemisphere can see that the risks are growing daily. But is there more objective information than that?
Well, soon after coming to office, the Labor government tasked the Office of National Intelligence with preparing an urgent climate risk assessment of the implications of climate change for national security. The ONI’s report was duly presented to the government in late 2022. Amazingly, the report remains under wraps, with only some key members of Cabinet having seen it.
It’s incredible to ask the people of Australia to prepare for a national security emergency without being willing to reveal to us what exactly it might look like!
It remains a big secret because it is so shocking, no doubt.
It has to.
If the peasants world wide finally come to realise that the Human race is doomed, possibly along with a livable Earth, imagine the chaos.
Law and Order gone, supply chain breakdown, civil wars, gang-lord armies, private armies owned by the rich. People themselves fighting for food, fuel and protection, invading farms and distribution centers, Pollies powerless, Military and Police forming their own protective groupings, power and transport unavailable. larger Countries worst hit invading smaller less hit countries for temporary reprieve.
Then add what the Climate itself adds to this!
Feed the Peasants beer and circuses, add lies and disinformation and hope to get a few more years before the awakening and extinction.
There is a huge difference between what 1.5 degrees will bring about and what 4 degrees will cause to happen. Being defeatists about this is understandable but not good for the soul. Action is the only ethical response and that’s not impossible even now. In the last year there’s been a big shift in the views expressed in forums like this, mainly to doomism, but channel that depression into anger and we can bring about change.
JL.
I understand what you are saying, and my soul is heavy.
But, everything I see seems to tell me that is too late for any successful action. I also suspect that the various Governments have consulted the ones who know best (scientists and informed observers) and realise the hopelessness
of the situation.
Their role now is to try to keep the appearance of normality and controlability going as long as possible.
For me the climate situation has reached the self reinforcing state, or snowball effect.
Ocean currents which control the climate are starting to change from their former regular and predictable patterns which in turn affect the winds and local temperatures. Ice melt both Arctic/Antarctic and glacial, altering both ocean salinity and reflective heat rejection. Sea level rise as well.
the Arctic tundra is melting releasing both more fresh water and Carbon Dioxide.
Deforestation is continuing apace.
Oil and gas exploration and production goes on releasing and creating more Greenhouse gasses.
Numerous Countries are having wars creating massive increases of climate/Earth destroying actions.
The spate of Wildfires continues releasing more CO2 and additionally reducing the very trees that help reduce CO2.
We keep producing more and more humans who want more and more stuff, also cars. transport, houses, schools, cities and other Climate changing stuff.
Additionally any meaningful climate beneficial activity introduced by Governments would severely affect the voters who would then vote them out of Government, or riot, so little would change.
Sorry to be so negative, but that is what I see and hear. My only consolation is that I have reached a ripe old age had a great life. My regret is that I contributed to this mess albeit unknowingly in the early years.
And a deep SORRY to the younger generations
We have to defeat the China ‘threat’ first, because that’s what the hegemon bully wants.
Yes. And when the “threat”posed by China isn’t scary enough, lets debate the alien problem, and the deep state hiding the imminent invasion of planet earth.
That’s America. And our “leaders” feel the need to follow them???
Demonstrating the enormous power of the fossil fuel lobby in pressuring government to keep the realities of climate change and any action we could take, off the table.
The fundamental and guiding principle of the economic ideology to which we are wed is to externalise every cost at any cost in the pursuit of eternal growth. We, at the bottom of the capitalist layer cake, are as much held captive by the logic of domination, exploitation, and ecological destruction as those at the top are captivated by it. We’ll (at the bottom) be the first to pay, undoubtedly, as we always are, but the house of cards can’t last too much longer. The implosion will catch most, one way or another.
We will not even attempt to pick the low hanging fruit and make the country less energy wasteful. Much of Australia would need minimal heating and a lot less cooling if this were the case. But the apartments go up still with shit builds, Rudd was on the right path but was crucified for his insulation plan. Gillard was right with her low level carbon tax, but she was pilloried. We have massive development with black roofs in places like Wagga Wagga- right near the University. We remove shade at every opportunity and give our water away to foreign countries. A collection of indiots. The LNP in all of this I see as traitors.