Integrating climate adaptation and disaster preparedness

From Panel Session 1 'A national adaptation reform agenda: what is needed?'
Day 2, 1:00pm, Tuesday 25th July, Climate Adaptation 2023: Act Together - Act Now

Internationally there is strong support for integrating climate adaptation and disaster preparedness. These are not two separate fields of endeavour but part of a critical spectrum of planning for the future. However, without anticipatory policies and as disasters worsen, there are increasing risks that we will continue to invest the vast majority of our resources in response and recovery. Instead, we must make it much easier for communities to implement climate-ready resilience strategies – a much more cost-effective approach than recovery from disasters. Right now a community wanting to implement Nature-based Solutions to flood resilience, including benefits to biodiversity and soil erosion, requires State and Territory regulatory approvals for planning, environment and water to have been obtained before a project can be registered. The multitude of regulations and associated approvals delay the implementation of essential solutions to flood resilience which could save people’s lives, property, and natural assets. We need integrated planning systems focussed on outcomes that span land use planning, disasters, agriculture, environment, biodiversity, water resources, infrastructure, and building and engineering standards. For this, we would need far-reaching legal reforms enabling positive initiatives such as nature-based solutions while constraining inappropriate urban development in high-risk areas, including those prone to flooding, extreme bush fires or sea level rise. Preventative planning approaches may require limiting individual property rights due to the known risk factors that are intensifying in a changing climate. Integrated adaptation and disaster preparedness is more than a technical policy development exercise. It involves engaging communities in the changing realities of climate-driven risk and empowering and supporting them to make positive decisions.