Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
maximum extent possible. Conversely, these storylines demonstrate that failure
by the state to allow for climate change impacts can have disastrous conse-
quences for the environment and society.
Three main conclusions can be drawn from the storylines presented here. First,
the institutional framework of the state is key to adaptation success. The choices
we are able to make about adaptation are a function of the institutions in which
they are nested: in terms of governance, the highest order institution is the state.
We show here how the state matters for adaptation, suggesting that given the
current nature of the state, a transformation of the state itself may be required if
we are to successfully adapt to high rates of warming. Transformability has been
defined as the capacity to create a fundamentally new system when ecological,
economic or social, including political, conditions make the system untenable
(Walker et al., 2004). Indeed, as Giddens (2009) argues, it may be that the state
transformed can avoid 4°C of warming. Even so, even at 2°C of warming, and
with the most effective and purposeful state possible, some impacts of climate
change cannot be avoided: ecosystems will change, some species will be lost, and
places will change. Other studies have argued that in some places and for some
systems, risks and vulnerabilities will be so major that they will require trans-
formational rather than incremental adaptations (Kates et al., 2012). However,
what the best of all possible states
can
do is to avoid the transmission of these
changes in environments into social impacts.
Second, adaptation will require large amounts of power to be successful - to
cool urban environments, to pump water to where it is needed, to power public
transport systems. To avoid maladaptation, low-carbon (across the entire life
cycle) generation is required. Planning and implementation of appropriate infra-
structure takes time (of the order of decades), not least of which is the time to
gain public acceptance if the solution is to be based around nuclear energy. State
institutions need not only to be purposeful - they need to be wise if infrastructure
solutions for adaptation are to be delivered in an appropriate and timely fashion.
Finally, Australia adapts to climate change within its international context.
How it adapts, and how successfully, is conditional on the impacts of climate
change on other nations and their responses. Most critically, this will affect food
trade and security. Under changing rainfall patterns, it is not clear if Australia
can grow enough to feed its own population and maintain exports. If it cannot,
Australia will rely on others to be able to make up the shortfall to the extent
necessary to prevent shortages, price increases and, potentially, civil unrest.
Notes
1
A discriminatory practice whereby institutions refuse to make loans/sell insurance
because applicants live in an area deemed to be a poor financial risk, for example,
because of exposure to flooding.
2
Named after Henry Ford, Fordism refers to a notion of modern economic and social
systems based on an industrialized and standardized form of mass production.
