Victoria's Climate Change Adaptation Plan (2017-2020)

Australia's State of Victoria Climate Change Adaptation Plan defines Victoria's climate change action priorities for 2017-2020. The Plan sets out the Government’s strategic priorities, measures and responses for adaptation in Victoria through 2020, as required by the state's Climate Change Act 2010. Victoria defines immediate priorities to address localized climate impacts and risks, and describes methods for building partnerships for an integrated response to climate change. 

The Adaptation Plan focuses on building resilience to climate enhanced events such as extreme weather, bushfire, flood and drought, and the impacts on human health, public safety, infrastructure, primary production, settlements and ecosystems. A portion of the plan focuses on embedding adaptation in core policy areas and sectors - including health and human services, extreme weather events, natural environment, agriculture, water resources and built environment. Numerous detailed strategies are described for each, including examples and case studies of successfully implemented adaptation initiatives.  

The state’s approach to adaptation in these sectors includes a commitment to planning that is equitable, fair, and ensures “priority support of vulnerable communities." The Adaptation Plan develops and builds on existing equity-based adaptation initiatives that seek to protect those most vulnerable to climate change in Victoria. These include initiatives in:

  • Health and Human Services: as described in the report, the increase in heatwaves and hot days is one of the most dangerous climate change hazards to human health in Australia. In Victoria, heatwaves cause more deaths than any other natural disaster - and in the absence of adaptation planning, it is projected that heatwaves will cause an additional 6214 deaths in Victoria by 2050. The Victorian government is working to improve resilience in its health infrastructure to ensure the state has capacity to respond to climate change related impacts to health through various health and wellbeing initiatives - which are detailed further in the plan.
  • Energy Efficiency: The government is assisting people to make their homes more energy efficient in order to reduce power costs for the most vulnerable, make housing more climate resilient, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The government is also improving the climate resilience of public housing, through new design guidelines that require public housing to be built to a minimum 7-star standard with energy efficient appliances where practicable.
  • Agriculture: the Victorian agricultural sector is particularly vulnerable to climate change and improving agricultural resilience is critical to protecting rural communities, jobs and the state’s economy. The Drought Preparedness and Response Framework (2015) is a state initiative to assist farmers preparing for and experiencing drought. The framework incentivizes farmers to “build capacity, adapt and be self-reliant”, as well as creating a drought relief fund to protect the welfare of farming communities during droughts.

Proposed state government legislation on climate change commits the state government to developing five yearly Adaptation Action Plans from 2020 for core sectors including: Health and human services, Natural environment, Built environment, Water cycle, and Primary production and transport. These plans will assess climate change related vulnerabilities and risks in these sectors and identify government actions and priorities to increase resilience and mitigate vulnerabilities.

 

Publication Date: 2016

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  • Adaptation plan

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