Tracking the progress of climate change adaptation: An Australian case study

Abstract

The last decade has seen strong global growth in the number of climate change adaptation projects. To understand whether adaptation is progressing and is successful, some form of longitudinal tracking is required. The six adaptation conferences organised by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility between 2010 and 2018 provide a unique and novel opportunity to track adaptation progress in Australia. Each conference was accompanied by a call for abstracts for oral or poster presentation. The submitted abstracts form the basis of the analysis in this paper. We show that, over time, the balance of attendees shifted away from researchers and towards government employees, and the proportion of attendees submitting abstracts declined. The proportion of abstracts submitted by government employees and consultants has increased at more recent conferences. When abstract content is analysed, the results show that, over time, there has been a change in the focus of abstracts with respect to the sector, type and stage of adaptation. These trends indicate maturation of adaptation in Australia, but also suggest that lack of finance for research and action is having an impact. There is evidence that adaptation in Australia is moving from being largely planning based and towards implementation. This is encouraging, given that studies throughout the world have remarked on the barriers that exist in moving from planning to action.