Can we successfully adapt to four degrees of global warming? - Four Degrees of Global Warming - page 206

The current climate is characterized by high year-to-year rainfall variability,
influenced by the Southern Oscillation, with multi-year droughts interspersed
by periods of high rainfall often leading to floods. The northern tropical regions
experience cyclones. Even in southern mainland Australia, daytime tempera-
tures will exceed 40°C for several days each summer, accompanied by high
bushfire risk (Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology, 2012; Braganza et
al., 2013 [ Chapter 3 , this volume]).
We assume that 4°C of warming will be reached sometime during the 2070s
(see Betts et al., 2011; Christoff, 2013, and Whetton et al., 2013 [ Chapters 1 and
2 , this volume]). As earlier chapters suggest, for Australia, the principal impacts
are taken to include:
● many severely threatened ecosystems; some, such as coral reefs and alpine
communities, are in long-term decline and can be considered no longer
viable;
● unpleasant and, in summer at least, life-threatening urban climates;
● more and more powerful extreme weather events; bushfires are more frequent
and more intense, increased frequency and intensity of storms and flooding,
and so on;
● more variable rainfall, with lower rainfall and more frequent, longer droughts
in southern Australia;
● coastal developments more frequently inundated because of sea-level rise;
coastal wetlands experience saline intrusion; shorelines erode and retreat.
The three scenarios
We imagine three scenarios for the 2070s, each with different assumptions about
the nature of the state, including influences on public policy, social norms,
adaptation policy, mitigation actions and international relations. We understand
the state to be institutions that govern society and which in Australia arise from
a social contract between individuals and governments. For each, we describe
the implications of these assumptions for the future of cities, rural and regional
areas, coasts, energy, water resources, ecosystems, agriculture, transport, tourism
and human health under high rates of warming. Table 13.2 shows how the drivers
of adaptation map onto the socioeconomic sectors adapting to climate change
in the three storylines.
The three scenarios and their key assumptions are:
1 ' 'Terroir Australis ' (minimal state / pro-growth), where the state is minimal
and increasingly illegitimate; public policy is held hostage to the interests of
capital; social norms include the values of growth, consumption and compe-
tition; and adaptation aims to secure growth through strategies such as the
progressive privatization of essential services and public goods.
2 ' Terroir Australis ' (social development state / pro-equity), where the state is
social democratic; public policy is made through negotiations between the