“The next phase of climate action will be shaped by the need to consider climate impact as it is already happening in ways that are economically and politically obvious. The new report from the Federal Government is clearly shaping the next phase of policy action due shortly on targets - but it was held back from release until after the Woodside decision.

The biggest climate impact outlined in the report is mortality, due mostly to urban heat in outer suburbs away from coastal areas. Without action, worldwide mortalities will rise to a catastrophic level. Such global considerations need to be considered as decisions made in Australia impact on the whole world. This debate needs to be transferred into rapid action.”

"The National Climate Risk Assessment represents a major turning point in our conversation on the relationship between society and nature. The report breaks away from the mainstream convention of portraying a future of endless growth, where we can ‘green’ the economy and carry on getting richer forever. Instead, we see a future fundamentally defined by limits – limits of our natural world, and limits of our human-made systems to bend that world to our will. This should come as no surprise; after all,  environmentalists have been warning us about the need to rediscover ways to live within nature’s limits for decades.

Importantly, this report will need to be read alongside the emissions reduction targets due to be released within the coming week. Our efforts to urgently reduce emissions – depending on the success of the rest of the world to do the same – will dictate which of the ‘global warming levels’ (1.5°C, 2°C or 3°C) ultimately defines our future. Obviously, the more aggressively we reduce emissions, the lower our climate risk. Even more importantly, we must reach a similar turning point in our emissions conversation: high-energy, high-growth aspirations are incompatible with a rapid transition to Net Zero [1]. Attempting to transition to a low-carbon economy while pretending we can grow forever will keep us locked into a battle against nature that we will not win, no matter how much damage we inflict along the way."

[1] Hopeward, J., Davis, R., O’Connor, S., & Akiki, P. (2025). The Global Renewable Energy and Sectoral Electrification (GREaSE) Model for Rapid Energy Transition Scenarios. Energies, 18(9), 2205. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18092205

“The recent Australian Climate Service report highlights what we are already experiencing around Australia with increased climate related risks under the current 1.2°C of global warming, and what evidence has shown us.

Australians are already feeling this with the rising cost of living as prices have gone up for key items such as insurance, food and energy, with a part of the increased costs directly related to increased extreme weather events linked to climate change.

Without changing the current course we are on globally, these costs and impacts on lives and livelihoods will increase dramatically. Efforts to reduce our future risk through reducing emissions, and improved efforts to adapt will ultimately pay off for all of us, even though it may seem like an extra cost now. The sooner we act, the bigger the payoff. We all have a part to play in reducing climate risks in the same way the risks of driving are both a product of the roads the government builds, the companies that make our cars and the motorists that use them. It’s time we all start to take climate risks as seriously and be a part of making Australia a safer place to live, both now and in the future.”

"It’s a big, complicated piece of work that puts in place the building blocks for our understanding of how climate change will impact every area of our economy, society and environment. It introduces the notions of cascading and compounding effects, which help us understand what will happen when climate events happen more quickly together and to communities that still haven’t recovered from the previous one.

There is still much more to do. They haven’t yet integrated the international effects, such as international conflict and climate refugees. They haven’t integrated tipping points. And a clear dollar amount or GDP reduction for the economy would have helped focus our minds, but there are still lots of economic threads to work through. It’s important to recognise what is not yet in the report and that integrating them will make the conclusions worse. 

All up, this is a really important piece of work, especially as the voices of climate delay are getting louder, arguing that it’s too difficult and expensive to act. With this bigger and more complex picture of climate risk, it should become more apparent that climate action is the cheaper and easier path than the devastation we are currently heading towards."

"Despite the enormous changes occurring in and around Antarctica, our understanding of the impacts of these changes on Australia is limited. We know that melting Antarctic ice sheets will raise global sea levels, and that the loss of Antarctic sea ice will accelerate global warming, but these are broad statements. Adapting to future climate risk requires a more detailed understanding of the changes and how they will impact Australia.

The Antarctic and Southern Ocean technical report that was issued as part of the National Climate Risk Assessment is a first attempt to synthesise what we know and to highlight our knowledge gaps. These knowledge gaps hinder our ability to project future changes, and therefore limit our understanding of future climate risks. We are currently barrelling down the highway of climate change, navigating with a map that is missing lots of key information."

“The release of Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment and National Adaptation Plan highlight the critical role of research to inform bold decision-making, adaptation and investment to achieve the greatest reductions in risk for Australian communities.

Natural hazards are expected to become more frequent, more complex, more intense, more unpredictable and more difficult to manage due to climate change. These natural hazards will place greater demand on disaster management capabilities already under pressure from the rising frequency and severity of disaster impacts – there is an urgent need for smart, effective solutions that enhance the safety, resilience and sustainability of Australian communities.

In the future, we are likely to experience:

• widening impacts of natural hazards across societal, infrastructure, environmental and economic systems
• more people living in an almost constant state of either preparation or recovery
• greater complexity of disasters as systems become more interconnected and infrastructure is transformed, leading to cascading and unforeseen impacts
• rising insurance unaffordability in high-risk areas
• increasing impacts on physical and mental health
• greater species and habitat loss in the natural environment.

Doing more of the same is no longer sufficient. Small changes won’t get us there in time. As the natural hazard threat evolves, we must transform to Be Ahead of Ready.”

"As an Indigenous person, I welcome the findings of this long-awaited report. For a very long time, Indigenous communities across Australia have witnessed and suffered through the severe climate change impacts to their local environments and landscapes, and the most vulnerable people.

It is essential that Australian governments and corporate bodies strongly consider and take action to make changes based on the expert advice given within this report. We cannot delay this emergency response anymore. Our coastal and island communities, particularly the Torres Strait Islands, are at immediate risk of losing their homes, their cultural practices and traditions if we do not do anything now. These impacts are also seen in regional and remote communities where displacement is occurring due to increases in bushfires, floods and heatwaves.

Climate change has and will continue to impact the health of all Australians, the way we live, the way we travel, and the way we interact within society. We love our natural environments, our native flora and fauna, our cultural practices, getting outdoors and being social. All that we love about Australia is at great risk. We all need to be on board with acting now, but we need strong leadership from all Governments to change this environmental and human rights disaster around."

"The comprehensive and painstakingly rigorous report by the Australian Climate Service makes crystal clear the stark choices we have to determine our future.

Australia can keep doing the same – approving massive fossil fuel expansion and touting false excuses like offsets and carbon capture, continuing to supply coal and liquified ‘natural’ gas to the rest of the world to burn, placing unreasonable barriers for clean energy transition, and continuing to destroy our rich but fading biological diversity and priceless ecosystems.

The report shows us the clear, inescapable reality of that choice as we fudge over our global commitments. Our planet is gravely ill. Australia must stop stoking global warming to make realistic adaptation possible.

Alternatively, we could respectfully listen and co-design real solutions based on the ancient wisdom and knowledge so generously offered with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. We can meld this with Western understandings generated by our world-class scholars and scientists. We also have amazing communities eager to transform the way we live into a much more caring and cohesive society.

With these tools, we can transform ourselves from fossil fuel champions, accelerating the dreadful road to 3 degrees and beyond, to become world leaders showing the way to positive change with the fierce urgency of right now."

"Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA), and its accompanying datasets, provide a much-needed baseline for organisations seeking to understand their exposure and vulnerability to climate risk. Yet the NCRA has clear limitations. Some are acknowledged in the report and may improve over time, but others are far harder to overcome. As a result, organisations – particularly Australian companies preparing for mandatory climate-related financial disclosures – must still undertake their own detailed assessments. For example:

• The Australian focus excludes cascading impacts from climate shocks elsewhere in the global economy, which could be highly significant (e.g., the potential loss or rising cost of reinsurance, which will flow into the cost of capital).
• The NCRA does not assess vulnerabilities at the level of individual assets, operations, or supply chains.
• The NCRA cannot fully capture dynamic interactions: within the climate system, between the economy and climate both domestically and internationally, or between hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and system responses.
• The NCRA does not consider how Australia’s own emissions trajectory will shape future risks.

These and other constraints mean that organisations cannot rely on the NCRA alone. Preparing robust climate-related financial disclosures requires internal analysis and capacity building that is informed, dynamic and adaptive – to both a changing climate and our evolving knowledge of it, as well as to shifting domestic and global emissions trajectories and targets."

“The NCRA underscores that climate change poses escalating health risks for Australians and specifically acknowledges that women face distinct vulnerabilities, including risks to reproductive and maternal health, an increased burden of unpaid care and domestic work, and importantly – systemic exclusion from decision-making and therefore stunted agency in change.

However, it is disappointing to see that the NCRA does not consistently provide sex-disaggregated data across the health outcomes it reports, which would likely have highlighted the substantial disproportionate risk women face beyond reproductive health as a consequence of certain environmental exposures that we know to be true from increasing local and international evidence.

Failure to capture the specific gendered health vulnerabilities to environmental exposures means that the data we have to inform evidence-based decisions on setting priorities for targeted interventions is limited. Strengthening adaptation efforts will require assessing these gendered inequities and building inclusive, transparent, culturally safe, and accountable processes to collectively address them as a nation”

“The National Climate Risk Assessment is a timely reminder that climate change presents interconnected risks that extend well beyond the environment. Supply and service chains are increasingly exposed to disruption from extreme weather events, whether through damaged transport networks, interrupted labour supply, or delays in global trade flows. These are not abstract risks: they are already visible in flood-damaged freight routes and heat-stressed workforces, and they are projected to escalate significantly in the coming decades.

Equally concerning are the vulnerabilities in our critical infrastructure. Energy systems, water supplies, and transport corridors form the backbone of daily life and economic activity, yet they are under growing pressure from climate extremes. When infrastructure fails, it is not only a technical problem but a social one – cascading into health, safety, and economic impacts for communities across Australia.

Finally, the risks to the broader economy cannot be overlooked. Climate-related shocks – from volatile insurance markets to reduced productivity and financial instability – have the potential to ripple across sectors and erode resilience. The task ahead is to integrate climate risk into planning, investment, and governance, ensuring that our supply chains and infrastructure are not only protected but positioned to adapt in a changing climate.”

"The National Climate Risk Assessment highlights that 1.5 million Australians could be at risk from sea-level rise by 2050. This is not a distant challenge—we are already seeing higher-than-average sea-level rise around our coastline, and planning for these changes is urgent.

A key scientific uncertainty lies in how Antarctica will respond to a warming world. The West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are already recognised as highly vulnerable, but the East Antarctic Ice Sheet—by far the largest—has long been considered more stable. Recent evidence suggests that parts of East Antarctica—including the region covered by the Australian Antarctic Territory— may become vulnerable sooner than expected as warming oceans and subglacial meltwater accelerate ice loss. This matters because East Antarctica contains enough ice to raise global seas by tens of metres over time.

To refine projections of sea-level rise, we need more on-the-ground measurements from Antarctica and improved representation of critical processes in our models. Better understanding of how ice, ocean, and subglacial meltwater interact will give us the confidence needed to plan for Australia’s future. Investing in this science is not optional—it underpins the resilience of our coastal communities, infrastructure, and economy in the decades ahead."

"In a world of misinformation, it is critical that the Australian Government has released its evidence-based climate risk assessment.

It clearly explains that climate risks are not far off and isolated to a few unfortunates, but right now for every Australian. The good news is that our nation has choices we can make to avoid the worst.

The fact that 1.5 million Australians may be impacted by rising seas and coastal hazards by 2050 is shocking, even for this sea level scientist.

Much of this change will come from Antarctica, and the report outlines that while the Antarctic has been undergoing rapid warming and is now experiencing abrupt changes, much of this is not yet captured in our current generation of projections – there is still much to do to understand the risk we all face."

“The National Climate Risk Assessment makes it clear that describing extreme weather events as ‘once-in-a-century’ is no longer accurate. These events are becoming more frequent and intense, and we must remain vigilant as climate projections evolve, especially given that global efforts to reduce carbon emissions are still falling short of what is needed.

While there has been significant progress over the past 15 years in developing climate adaptation plans, the National Assessment is a timely reminder that these plans must be reviewed and strengthened. We need to ensure our communities, ecosystems, economy, and infrastructure are prepared for a wider and more complex range of climate impacts.

With the release of new datasets and improved understanding of climate impacts, we are now better equipped to make informed decisions about how we respond to climate change.

The inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in the National Climate Risk Assessment marks a vital shift in how we understand and respond to climate risks. Their deep knowledge and lived experience of Country offer invaluable insights. The Report’s recognition of risks to self-determination is especially important, supporting efforts to care for Country and address longstanding gaps in health, wellbeing, and the cultural connections to Country."

"As Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said, the assessment is an honest warning of the cost of failing to act. The risks and costs will be exacerbated by the Trump Administration's rejection of climate mitigation and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

In response, Australia and other nations need to step up with stronger action, including restrictions on exports of coal, oil and gas.

Unfortunately, there is no sign of this happening. Rather, the risk is that Australia may adopt an inadequate target for domestic emissions reductions, while expanding exports of carbon-based fuels."

"Australia’s climate is changing. It is important that the science behind climate change keeps up.

The results of climate change that we are experiencing are more droughts, including the relatively newly recognised form of drought termed “Flash Drought”, increasing flash floods, and heatwaves.

Extremes in rainfall are occurring all at once in different parts of the country. For example, parts of the Australian southeast coast are on track for an extreme annual rainfall total from rain in the historically cooler months while Melbourne is on track for its lowest annual total on record.

Droughts usually develop through spring and summer, but a Flash Drought developed over inland NSW in the Upper Hunter in May 2023 when the influence of El Niño is not present. At the same time flash flood rainfall was being experienced on coastal parts of NSW.

To address these increasing changes in climate, research into the climate drivers responsible needs to be continued."

“The National Climate Risk Assessment exposes significant existing and future risks for people who already experience systemic disadvantage in Australia. The report identifies the priority risks to health and wellbeing from slow-onset and extreme climate impacts.

Health and community service systems are not sufficiently prepared or resourced to effectively support the widespread and diverse impacts of climate change on people. As such, existing inequalities will continue to worsen as climate change intensifies. This includes issues such as poverty, homelessness, family and domestic violence, physical and mental ill-health, and energy and food insecurity; along with further breakdown of social cohesion through increased racism, ableism, and gender inequality. As extensive research has shown, groups particularly at risk of climate impacts include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, women, children, older people, people on low income, people with disability and people with pre-existing health issues, LGBTQIA+ peoples, people experiencing homelessness, people of colour and migrant communities, people in prisons, people in rural and remote areas, frontline workers and first responders.

A climate justice approach is required to mitigate climate risks for systemically marginalised communities. Significantly more funding and resourcing is vital to transform health and community services to effectively prepare for, and respond to, the needs of climate-impacted communities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and People with Lived Experience must be at the centre of climate change policy-making, decision-making, and frontline service design and implementation. Urgent emissions reduction is required to limit global warming; 3 degrees of warming is catastrophic for social justice and collective wellbeing”.

“Risk is a powerful concept because it forces us to ask what we value as a community, what threats exist, and what effect our management and policies have.

Australia’s National Climate Risk Assessment is quite a remarkable document. Not only does it tackle climate risk, it takes a systems view, highlighting the interconnected nature of our human and environmental systems. The report reminds us of the world of pain we’re in for if we do not make deep and rapid cuts to our greenhouse emissions from things like fossil fuel burning and land clearing.

There is still a lot more work to do – we could write 284 pages just on how landscape fire affects Australia’s key systems – but this is a really encouraging first step. I hope to see a lot of people talking about, using and building on this report going forward."

"The overview seems to me to be a robust assessment of what we know. It does not fall into the trap of overly granular information and the use of the IPCC confidence measures is really sensible. In short, I think this is an impressive piece of work of considerable value in (a) guiding risk assessment and (b) inoculating people against those who would purport to provide risk information at scales of tens of metres. The thing that stands out to me is the low to medium confidence in riverine flooding, tropical cyclones, storms, and droughts. This contrasts strongly with the very high confidence in fire, temperature, sea level rise, ocean warming and acidification. I'd strongly agree with those assessments.

It is obviously impossible for this 2025 National Risk Assessment to be definitive. The killer problem is how to increase the confidence in riverine flooding, tropical cyclones, storms, and droughts? Building on this excellent work, one might ask what is the national research strategy to improve our understanding? How do we bring the various research capabilities together and how do we convince government that investment in reducing uncertainty enables better targeting of adaptation investment?

I mean, we do not know what the future holds for riverine flooding, tropical cyclones, storms, and droughts. Think about that for a moment ... we do not have confident projections for these things. That is not because it cannot be done, it is because there is no effective national strategy to make it happen. It's solvable with national leadership; it's not that hard, there are exemplars in Europe, the UK and elsewhere. So come on Australia, let's be ambitious and ensure the 2030 National Risk Assessment has high confidence in all the major risks.

Australia needs to be ambitious on its target and ambitious in how it engages internationally to support emissions reductions."

"Scientists have been warning of these risks for decades, but today’s National Climate Risk Assessment puts into sharp relief the immense challenge before us. It is natural to feel a sense of loss—species diversity and abundance are declining, from the Great Barrier Reef to Ningaloo, and the impacts on human health, agriculture, and insurance costs are only set to grow.

Yet from this sense of loss must also come hope: there is still time to mitigate the worst impacts—but only if governments, communities, and industries act decisively and together."

"Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment provides a sobering account of how climate change is reshaping the nation.

The report makes clear that climate risks are no longer distant or abstract future risks.

Climate risks are already impacting the resilience of our communities, economies and ecosystems.

In particular, the findings highlight that adaptation to these risks is no longer optional but an urgent requirement, particularly given that risks do not occur in isolation but cascade across multiple sectors, which is amplifying impacts.

What will be needed is a systemic approach to adaptation underpinned by robust governance and long-term planning, but this is currently absent from many policy and institutional frameworks. What this means is that climate adaptation and resilience must be embedded across policy, community planning and business practice.

Importantly, the report acknowledges that those already disadvantaged will be hardest hit, and that without direct intervention Australia will face the irreversible loss of critical ecosystems and species.

The Assessment should act as a national wake-up call. Australia needs sustained investment in adaptation strategies that are not piecemeal and are also integrated with current efforts to transition to a low carbon economy.

Otherwise, the costs to households, communities and future generations will only grow."

"This report is confronting but extremely necessary. We know that the vast majority of the public want to see real action on climate change. Having the risks to our country and our way of life clearly laid out brings us closer to understanding the action that we must take – urgently.

The report highlights the potential for escalating risks to have ripple effects that will cascade across society.

This brings into sharp focus that the costs of inaction are likely to be much higher than the costs of action. It also points to an opportunity: acknowledging the reality of future climate risk can be the impetus for a positive social tipping point in how we live our lives and adapt to our future climate."