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Climate Adaptation Mission
This website shares our progress on the Mission led by BehaviourWorks Australia (BWA) and its partners exploring how systemic behavioural public policy experiments could have a substantial impact on reducing projected harms from climate change. It is part of the BehaviourWorks Australia Consortium, which has a focus on identifying shared policy challenges between partners and tackling them with behavioural approaches.
This mission leverages the combined reach, resources and expertise of the following BWA Consortium partners: Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (Vic), Sustainability Victoria, The Shannon Company, and the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water, and the Environment.
WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Climate change poses an increasing threat that impacts the lives of Australians. Current research emphasises that Australia is amoungst the most exposed countries to climate change impacts, with a range of climate change changes already observed in the last 20 years. At present, these impacts disproportionately threaten the lives and livelihoods of our most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. If globally agreed emission reduction targets are not achieved, increasingly catastrophic and even existential threats can be expected, making adaptation increasingly difficult, or impossible.
To protect valued aspects of life, we need to prevent harm through building adaptive capacity: "the ability or potential of a system to respond successfully to climate variability and change, which includes adjustments in both behaviour and in resources and technologies."
Changing human behaviour and decision making is a key element of adaptive capacity, but its not all of the solution, and our work will link behaviour change to other perspectives and interventions.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY CLIMATE ADAPTATION?
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY CLIMATE ADAPTATION?
Climate adaptation ensures the flourishing of humanity despite climate change and variability through adjustments to systems of behaviours, resources, and technology.
Climate change stressors (e.g. heat waves, floods) and impacts (e.g. loss of habitat, human ill-health) are affecting Australia right now and will get worse.
Much attention is currently given to reducing individual harm during emergencies (e.g. evacuation from bushfires). Thus, BWA and its partners identified an area of need to build adaptive capacity for cumulative and slower impacts from chronic climate change stressors. Changing behaviours for individuals and groups is our core contribution, but how behaviours co-evolve with policy, and social, economic, and biophysical systems are in scope.
Examples of climate adaptation programs:
Accelerating adaptive capacity for critically lagging private sectors
Enhancing the adaptive capacity for critical public and ecosystem services
Building individual and collective adaptive capacity in communities
Supporting planned migration and transition from high exposure locations and activities
WHAT ARE THE MISSION'S GOALS?
WHAT ARE THE MISSION'S GOALS?
MISSION GOAL
Increase the adaptive capacity of communities most at risk of climate change impacts by 2030
By adaptive capacity, we mean changes in behaviour, technology, and resources needed to thrive in the face of climate change and variability.
The goal is in line with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13: Climate Adaptation as it aims to tackle the increasing occurrence of high impact events linked to climate change in Australia (such as the 2020 bushfires), address the updates within governmental adaptation strategies, and is relevant to the wider goals of all consortium partners.
WHO, WHAT, AND WHERE?
BWA and its partners agreed upon a set of climate stressors or impacts, groups affected by and relevant to climate adaptation, and places or areas to target.
The problem (what) identified was climate change impacts on ecosystem services; such as air quality, livable temperatures, safe hydrology, water availability, and more)
The people (who) identified were low-income households, communities dependent on natural resource management, young people, and First Nations communities.
The places (where) targeted will include both metropolitan and regional areas in Australia.
Climate Adaptation Mission Initial Scoping Paper
For readers seeking to understand the full scope of the Climate Adaptation Mission
WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW?
WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW?
WHAT HAVE WE DONE SO FAR?
On 19 July, 2021, BWA and its partners sat down and came to an agreement to explore a reformulated mission goal that emphasises well-being, resilience, and the ability to thrive for potentially vulnerable groups that would be empowering to them.
Our initial meeting concluded:
the selection and identification of the problems, people, and places the Mission will target (see under 'what are the mission's goals?');
the intended outcome of the adaptation interventions: boosting capacity and resilience of vulnerable groups.
Other possible enablers included: prioritising climate risk in policy, identifying co-benefits in policy, and convening stakeholders to set a shared agenda.
WHAT'S NEXT?
We are finalising the priority climate adaptation 'challenges' we'll seek to address, with co-designed behaviour change trials in 2022 - 2023.
We recently invited stakeholders and other potential collaborators to a Prioritisation Summit to choose the 4-6 key challenges we will take forward into the co-design phase.
If you're interested in participating in future Mission activities, provide your contact information in this survey
PROJECT TEAM
PROJECT TEAM
Dr Alexander Saeri, Mission Co-Lead
Alexander works to increase the reach and impact of behavioural science for the world's most pressing problems. His hopes for the Mission is that it demonstrates a workable model for effectively reducing suffering from the unavoidable impacts of climate change.
Dr Stefan Kaufman, Mission Co-Lead
Stefan applies a behavioural lens to the theory and practice of intentionally steering the co-evolution of people and environments towards better futures. He hopes the Mission helps communities protect and enhance what they value under conditions of climate variability and change.
Emily Grundy, Prioritisation Lead
Emily has expertise in prioritisation methodology. She is excited to apply her knowledge to determine the pressing challenges that communities face in climate change adaptation.
Dr Celine Klemm, Team member
Celine has expertise in evidence synthesis, climate change and risk communication and behaviour science methods. She hopes to use her skills to help develop evidence-based solutions that can help communities, especially those most vulnerable, to adapt to our changing climate and protect our natural environment.
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