From the editor: The problem of climate change creep

TIM THWAITES

Editor, Science Victoria

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On the morning of 26 August, about 0.2 km² of ice and rock detached from a glacier high in the Himalayas and fell 1200 m (4000 ft) into a lake below. The resulting flash flood directly affected over 80,000 people, washing away more than 30 bridges and 40 km of road, and impacting much more.

The event was one of the more impressive examples of the destructive power of climate change. And it is perhaps a fitting prelude to this year’s COP31 Conference to be held from 9 to 20 November in Antalya, Türkiye.

No doubt this year’s conference will discuss the recent admission of the United Nations Environment Program that humanity has already broken the Paris agreement to try to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 ºC above the average pre-industrial level. And that means we are now beyond mitigation, and in an era of adaptation to climate change.

Unfortunately, we have become too used to hearing about climate-inspired disasters. Just this year, for example, we have also had Europe’s devastating summer of heat waves and fires, intense cyclonic storms in Asia, Australia and the Caribbean, and the initiation of the strongest El Niño event ever predicted.

But, for the most part, that is NOT what this issue of Science Victoria, on Living with Climate Change in Victoria, is about. What has most interested me in our stories for this issue are those impacts of climate that are not readily apparent, that we do not see. This is the incremental nature of climate change, what you might call “climate change creep”.

How many of us are aware, for instance, of the threat of global warming to Victoria’s and Australia’s native alpine species, plants such as specially adapted alpine callistemons, grasses, daisies and wildflowers. How are they coping? Andie Dittman introduces us to the work that researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and Deakin University are undertaking to find out.

And what of the animals, such as the Bogong moths and the mountain pygmy-possums? Well, as Marissa Parrott and her colleagues at Zoos Victoria tell us, everyone can contribute to helping us understand more, through the Moth Tracker citizen science program.

How are our local creeks and rivers impacted by climate change, particularly in urban areas where their natural flows have already been heavily managed and altered to prevent flooding? A recent Geography Victoria field trip observed just that, says its president, Professor Ian Rutherfurd of The University of Melbourne, and the future of Melbourne’s waterways demands serious attention.

It’s the same along our coasts, according to Simon Torok, a member of the former Victorian Marine and Coastal Council, an advisory body that the State government disbanded earlier this year. The council’s long-term research shows that whileVictorians love their coastline so much that 80 per cent of us visit it at least once a year, most do not recognise the impact of global warming in terms of sea level rise, erosion, storm surge and flooding. These impacts are likely to cost the State more than $300 billion by the end of the century, according to modelling released by Professor Tom Kompas of the University of Melbourne and his team in 2022.

The figure for the whole of Australia is nearly three times that, according to a study Kompas and colleagues undertook for the Climate Council and published in September in Nature Scientific Reports. 

Much of this cost is due to damage to housing and infrastructure from erosion and flooding. When interviewed on television on the evening the Climate Council report was released, a prominent real estate agent said he was not particularly worried about its potential impact on the value of coastal property—that people do not consider those sorts of things when buying a house, because they seem so far in the future. Not even some areas of government appear to take sea level rise seriously, judging by the development plans put forward for low-lying parts of Melbourne.

And that brings us to planning, which plays a fundamental role in mitigation and adaptation to climate change, says Jane Keddie, vice-president of the Planning Institute of Australia Victoria. How and where we build has a huge decades-long impact on carbon emissions. And if we get it wrong, retrofitting poorly located or laid-out suburbs is far harder than doing things right initially.

So, how much are we prepared to change our lives to adapt to climate change? Who is going to pay, for instance, for the cost to our farmers of sustainability and reducing carbon emissions in the production of the food we eat?, asks agricultural consultant Robert Poole of Corporate Value Associates?  And how are we going to ensure our farms remain profitable while the environment around them is changing rapidly?

What about our clothing? The textile industry is one of the world’s largest emitters of carbon. Are we prepared for a future of recycling and paying more for higher quality, more durable clothing? Those were some of the ideas emerging from an Innovation Week panel on sustainable fashion, reports Jessie Polain from The University of Melbourne.

One area where we are prepared to change and adapt relatively quickly is in looking after our health. As we ready ourselves for yet another spring of thunderstorm asthma, emerging scientist Subham Priya tells us the story of 21 November, 2016 when 10 Melburnians died in a disastrous storm that sealed the city’s reputation as a world leader of this terrifying condition. In the 10 years since, she writes, we have made great progress in responding, but there’s still a way to go.

Perhaps it’s time we devoted more thought and resources to adapting to climate change on many other fronts. In this issue, read about why we should. 

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References

[1] Kompas, T. et al. (2022) Economic impacts from sea level rise and storm surge in Victoria, Australia over the 21st century, a technical report prepared for the Victorian Marine and Coastal Council by the Centre for Environmental and Economic Research, The University of Melbourne and Climate Risk Pty Ltd, Sydney. https://www.smh.com.au › interactive › hub › media › tearout-excerpt › 18691 › a1420184d6623d94a7f338

[2] Kompas, T. et al. (2026) Nationwide economic impacts of sea level rise and storm surge from global warming in Australia. Scientific Reports 16: 27235. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-67957-1