Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
deaths are estimated to increase in Australia from 5,800 in 1990 to 17,200 in a
Four Degree World. Nevertheless, it is difficult to project the location, scale and
intensity of the primary, secondary and tertiary impacts of a Four Degree World
on human health in Australia. Much depends on where those changes manifest
and on the level and quality of investment in health services, and capacities
for increasing resilience to climate change's direct impacts such as heatwaves,
floods and fires, and the ecologically-mediated dispersal of infectious diseases
like malaria and dengue fever. Even so, vulnerable groups - such as Australia's
ageing population, low-income households and those already ill - are more likely
to be affected by direct impacts, and by indirect impacts such as declining food
availability and nutrition, inappropriate housing conditions and medical services
insufficient to these new challenges.
Urban Australia
Australia is one of the world's most urbanized societies: 70 per cent of its
population lives in six major cities and over 90 per cent in these cities plus regional
centres. The direct and indirect impacts of climate change will be exacerbated by
the density of urban settlement and valuable infrastructure. Increasingly frequent
heatwaves, storms, floods and bushfires will affect transport, health, housing and
disaster response services, and potentially also energy, water and food supplies.
Coastal settlements will be vulnerable to impacts associated with sea-level rise.
Effective adaptation to preserve the complex interactions between these systems
will become increasingly expensive as warming progresses. Some adaptive
planning is underway in all States and some capital cities (Melbourne and
Sydney), including changes in land use planning, building standards, 'weather-
proofing' technologies and improved public education. However, adaptation
planning is poorly integrated and action to reduce risk and ameliorate urban
impacts remains limited, under resourced and largely ad hoc.
Human security and the region
Climate change poses a threat to regional human security, and to national
security more conventionally defined. Australia's Asia and Pacific neighbours,
already highly vulnerable to natural disasters, will be hard hit by global warming.
The combination of growing populations, flooding in populous low-lying coastal
settlements, declining marine and terrestrial resources and increasing food
insecurity, will be further destabilizing influences. Indonesia, China, India and
Bangladesh will suffer droughts, food shortages and possibly mass starvation. Up
to 250 million people in the Asia-Pacific may be displaced by drought and coastal
inundation. Climate-induced migration (much of it internal to the nations
affected) will place additional pressure on countries' infrastructure and services.
Australia's energy, defence, foreign aid and Asia-Pacific engagement policies
currently largely ignore the problem of global warming for regional security.
These transformations demand a rethinking of Australia's external relationships,
its border security arrangements, and the pattern and level of Australian foreign
assistance to cope with these pressures.
