Climate Council of Australia Submission To: Current and Future

Climate Council of Australia

Submission to: Current and future impacts of climate change on housing, buildings and infrastructure

Submission from:

Climate Council of Australia Pty Ltd

16 August 2017

About the Climate Council

The Climate Council is an independent non-profit organisation that provides authoritative, expert advice to the Australian public on climate change.

To find out more about the Climate Council’s work, visit www.climatecouncil.org.au

1. Executive Summary

The Climate Council thanks the Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications for the opportunity to provide a submission on current and future impacts of climate change on housing, buildings and infrastructure.

This submission refers to the following Terms of Reference:

a. recent and projected changes in sea level rises, and storm surge intensity; b. recent and projected changes in extreme weather, including heatwaves, bushfires, floods, and cyclones; c. the impact of these changes on water supply and sewage treatment systems; d. the impact of these changes on transportation, including railways, roads and airports; and e. the impact of these changes on energy infrastructure, including generators and transmission and distribution lines.

Australia is on the front line of climate change. With around 1°C of warming in Australia since the beginning of the 20th century, we have already witnessed significant and adverse consequences. The incidence of extreme temperatures has increased markedly over the last 50 years, and heatwaves have become hotter, are lasting longer and occur more often (CSIRO and BoM 2016). Ground-breaking scientific research that tells us how much influence climate change has on a single heatwave or heat record has shown that many of the most extreme weather events, such as Australia’s record hot year in 2013, were virtually impossible without climate change (Arblaster et al. 2014; King et al. 2014). The 2016/2017 summer has been described as the “Angry Summer”, highlighting the extraordinary number of weather records broken (Climate Council 2017a). This follows the long-term trend of rising global average temperature since the 1970s, increasing at a rate 170 times faster than the background rate over the past 7,000 years (Steffen et al. 2016). As climate impacts worsen so will the pressures on Australia’s infrastructure, such as transport and energy systems and the built environment.

Climate change (fuelled by the burning of coal, oil and gas) is influencing extreme weather events across Australia. Furthermore, projections of the escalating risks of climate change under a business-as-usual, high emissions scenario are becoming clearer and more disturbing. More extreme heat is virtually certain across the continent, and southern and eastern Australia will experience harsher fire weather. Extreme rainfall will likely become even more intense. Time in drought is projected to increase in southern Australia, with a greater frequency of severe droughts. Coastal flooding is very likely to increase as sea level rises at an increasing rate (CSIRO and BoM 2015).

Australia is the 16th largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, a greater contributor than 180 other countries (Global Carbon Project 2016). Australia must cut its greenhouse gas emissions much more deeply and rapidly to contribute its fair

1 share in meeting the climate change challenge. The Federal Government has set a goal to cut Australia’s emissions by 26-28% compared to 2005 levels, by 2030. This is considerably less ambitious than the targets recommended by the Climate Change Authority (CCA) in July 2015, which determined that Australia’s post- 2020 target should include: i) a 2025 target of a 30% reduction in its emissions below 2000 levels (or 36% reduction for 2005 base year); and ii) further reductions within a range of 40 to 60% below 2000 levels by 2030 (or a range of approximately 45 to 65% below 2005 levels). These targets were determined considering Australia’s fair international contribution. It is important to note that the CCA’s recommendations are based on a two-thirds chance of avoiding 2°C warming. For a stronger chance, the target should be even greater emission reductions. Therefore, if the global average temperature is to stay below 2°C, then the CCA recommendations should be seen as a bare minimum for Australia’s contribution to global efforts to tackle climate change.

The scientific basis for urgent action is clear. The decisions we make in the next several years, particularly decisions about long-term investments in energy, transport and built infrastructure, will largely determine the severity of climate change that Australians will experience for the rest of the century and beyond. Failing to take sufficient action entails potentially catastrophic risks to our economy, environment, society and health.

This is the critical decade for action and Federal Government policies and actions must drive deep and rapid cuts to our emissions if we are to protect our way of life into the future.

2. Climate Change and Infrastructure

Infrastructure requires a major capital outlay and on-going maintenance costs. Wear-and-tear on infrastructure generally includes an element of climate impacts – be it simple weathering (eg. solar break-down of paint, salt-water corrosion) or major damage or destruction during extreme events. The rate of deterioration will depend on design choices, construction processes, building materials, and the environment in which a structure is built. Decisions about what and how to build infrastructure will take into account lifespan (usually several decades), lifecycle maintenance costs and return on investment. Major climate-related damage to infrastructure can be a considerable burden on society and governments.

Coastal protection. Coasts are some of the most highly developed areas of Australia, and are exposed to storms, cyclones, storm surge, erosion and inundation. High demand for coastal land has meant development has occurred in areas of instability (erosion or accretion) and flooding. This presents ongoing challenges to local authorities to manage development, and to provide associated secure infrastructure.

Transport. Rail and road are vulnerable to flooding and heat damage (e.g. rail buckling, road cracking, bridge washout); airports can be closed during severe

2 electric storms, their runways may be rendered unusable by flooding; seaports are vulnerable to storms and storm surge. Severe damage to transport infrastructure can block emergency supply of food and goods as well as impeding evacuation.

Utilities. Both drought and flooding threaten water supply security: droughts limit water availability, floods can directly damage infrastructure such as purification plants, or increase turbidity to the point where the cost and time required to purify becomes prohibitive. Storms, dust storms, bushfires and heatwaves can damage or impair the function of electricity generation and transmission as well as telecommunications infrastructure. High service demand (e.g. electricity during heatwaves, telecommunications during extremes) can lead to electricity supply interruption (planned as rolling blackouts, or unplanned) and closure of mobile phone networks to the general public as these are reserved for emergency services.

Source: NCCARF 2013. 3. Sea level rise and storm surge intensity

Around 80% of Australians live on the coast, with many of Australia’s towns and cities facing increasing risk from sea-level rise and coastal flooding (Climate Council 2014a; Cole 2017). Impacts can include loss of life; disruption of health and social services; inundation of property and coastal infrastructure, such as houses, businesses, ports, airports, railways and roads; and damage to coastal, estuarine, and freshwater ecosystems (DCCEE 2011).

Climate change is increasing global sea levels through both the thermal expansion of a warming ocean and the flow of water into the ocean from melting of continental glaciers and polar ice sheets. Sea levels have risen about 20 cm since the mid-19th century (IPCC 2013). A recent study estimates that the pace of sea-level rise has nearly tripled since 1990 (Dangendorf et al. 2017). For major Australian coastal cities, it is likely that sea levels will rise by about 0.25 m and 0.6 m above the 1995 baseline by 2050 and 2090 respectively for a high-emissions scenario.

A coastal flooding (or “high sea-level”) event is caused by wind driven waves or a storm surge, generally exacerbated by a high tide. A storm surge is a rise above the normal sea level resulting from strong, mainly onshore winds and/or reduced atmospheric pressure. Storm surges accompany tropical cyclones as they make landfall but can also be formed by intense low pressure systems in non-tropical areas, such as east coast lows in the Tasman Sea. Storm surges can cause extensive flooding of coastal areas (Climate Council 2014a). The area of sea water flooding may extend along the coast for hundreds of kilometres, with water pushing several kilometres inland if the land is low-lying.

As the sea level continues to rise, these storm surges are riding on a higher base sea level and thus becoming more damaging as they are able to penetrate further inland. Some of the most devastating coastal flooding events are caused by a “double whammy” of concurrent high sea-level events and heavy rainfall events in

3 the catchments inland of coastal settlements. That is, coastal settlements can be inundated by water from both i) a storm surge, a high tide and a higher sea level, and ii) flooding rivers from the catchments behind the settlements.

The exposure of coastal assets to sea level rise influenced strongly by climate change is very large and the risks are set to increase. In Australia, more than $226 billion (2008$) in commercial, industrial, road and rail, and residential assets are potentially exposed to flooding and erosion hazards at a sea level rise of 1.1 m (a high-end scenario for 2100). For example, the estimated costs of impacts to coastal assets from inundation and shoreline recession combined is (based on 2008 replacement values): • 5,800 to 8,600 commercial buildings, with value $58 - 81 billion; • 3,700 to 6,200 light industrial buildings, with value $4.2 - $6.7 billion; and • 27,000 to 35,000 km of roads and rail, with value $51 - $67 billion (DCCEE 2011).

4. Extreme Weather All extreme weather events are being influenced by climate change as they are now occurring in a more energetic climate system (Trenberth 2012). Extreme weather events are very likely to become more intense and destructive over the next couple of decades because of the climate change that is already locked in from past greenhouse gas emissions. To protect Australia from even more severe extreme weather, a global effort, with Australia contributing its fair share, to rapidly and deeply reduce greenhouse gas emissions is urgently required. 4.1 Heatwaves Climate change is making hot days and heatwaves more frequent and more severe (Perkins and Alexander 2013; Climate Council 2014b). Australia’s climate has warmed by about 1°C from 1910, with most warming occurring since 1950 (CSIRO and BoM 2016). As a result, the number of hot days, defined as days with maximum temperatures greater than 35°C, has increased in the last 50 years (CSIRO and BoM 2016). Over the period 1971–2008, both the duration and frequency of heatwaves increased over much of the continent, and the hottest days during heatwaves became even hotter (Perkins and Alexander 2013), including in Australia’s capital cities.

Heat-related events have significant health and economic impacts as well as disrupting critical infrastructure, such as the supply of electricity to urban centres and public transport. For example, during the January 2009 heatwave in Melbourne (Figure 1), financial losses were estimated to be $800 million, mainly caused by power outages and disruptions to the transport network (Chhetri et al. 2012).

Figure 1: Anatomy of a heatwave—Infrastructure breakdown during the Melbourne 2009 heatwave. Source: Climate Council 2017.

A severe heatwave in early February 2017 affected much of Australia’s south, east and interior and caused considerable problems for the South Australian and New South Wales energy systems. In South Australia, 40,000 people were left without power for about half an hour in the early evening while temperatures were over 40°C. The highest temperature in South Australia was recorded on February 8 where the daytime maximum reached 46.6°C at Moomba airport, while Adelaide reached a high of 42.4°C (BoM 2017a, b). As the weather system moved further north, several days later on February 10, New South Wales experienced the same heatwave event with temperatures at Sydney Airport reaching 42.9°C, its hottest February temperature on record (BoM 2017c). With near record all-time peak electricity demand, the state narrowly avoided extensive blackouts. Import of electricity from three interconnections with Victoria and Queensland operated beyond design limits, contributing 12% to meeting peak demand (AEMO 2017). Around 3000MW of fossil- fuel generated electricity was not available – tripping off (400MW), unable to start (760MW), out for maintenance (1000MW) or output-limited due to cooling water limits (600MW). At one point, the Tomago aluminium smelter shed 580MW of load. Careful energy use by consumers, saving 200MW, also helped New South Wales avoid widespread blackouts. This heatwave over the ‘Angry Summer’ 2016/17

5 highlights the vulnerability of our ageing, fossil fuel-dependent energy systems to extreme weather.

Extreme heat and heatwaves will continue to become even more frequent and severe around the globe, including Australia, over the coming decades (IPCC 2012; Cowan et al. 2014), and the impacts will also become more severe. Brisbane, Canberra and Darwin are in line for the greatest proportional increases in the number of days with maximum temperatures 35°C and above. For example, Darwin experienced 11 days in 1995 with the maximum temperature above 35°C: this could rise to as many as 265 days per year by 2090 if greenhouse gases continue to be released at current rates (Table 1).

Table 1: Average number of days per year with the maximum temperature above 35°C for Australian capital cities. 2030 and 2090 figures are from climate model projections under different RCP scenarios; the 1995 figures are averages of observations for the 1981-2010 period. RCP8.5 means a high-end emissions scenario (business-as-usual), while RCP2.6 means a low-emissions scenario.

Source: CSIRO and BoM 2015.

4.2 Bushfires Climate change is affecting bushfire conditions by increasing the probability of dangerous bushfire weather. Many parts of Australia, including southern New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and parts of South Australia and southwest Western Australia have all experienced an increase in extreme fire weather since the 1970s (CSIRO and BoM 2016). Since the start of the 21st century, large and uncontrollable fires, for example, destroyed 500 houses in Canberra in 2003, bushfires in Victoria in 2009 claimed 173 lives and destroyed over 2,000 houses, and in 2013 large fires in Tasmania destroyed nearly 200 properties and forced the evacuation of hundreds of people from the Tasman Peninsula.

The impacts of a changing climate on bushfire regimes are complex. A fire needs to be started (ignition), it needs something to burn (fuel), and it needs conditions that

6 are conducive to its spread (weather) (Bradstock et al. 2014). While a fire must be ignited (by humans or lightning), the main determinants of whether a fire will take hold are the condition of the fuel and the weather, which are linked.

The influence of climate change on the amount and condition of the fuel is complex. For example, increases in rainfall may dampen the bushfire risk in one year by keeping the fuel load wetter, but increase the risk in subsequent years by enhancing vegetation growth and thus increasing the fuel load in the longer term. It is clear, however, that climate change is driving up the likelihood of dangerous fire weather. At higher temperatures, fuel is ‘desiccated’ and is more likely to ignite and to continue to burn (Geoscience Australia 2015). In addition, fires are more likely to break out on days that are very hot, with low humidity and high winds – that, is high fire danger weather (Clarke et al. 2013). Heatwaves are becoming hotter, longer and more frequent, which is contributing to an increase in dangerous bushfire weather. Also, over the past several decades in the southeast and southwest of Australia, there has been a drying trend characterised by declining rainfall and soil moisture. Contributing to this drying trend is a southward shift of fronts that bring rain to southern Australia in the cooler months of the year (CSIRO and BoM 2015). In very dry conditions, with relative humidity less than around 20%, fuel dries out and becomes more flammable (BoM 2009). Jolly et al. 2015 and Williamson et al. 2016 highlighted that the combination of droughts and heatwaves contribute significantly to particularly bad fire seasons in Australia’s southeast. A study into forested regions of Australia found that, in the majority of cases, years with drought conditions resulted in a greater area of burned land (Bradstock et al. 2014).

Projections by Deloitte Access Economics (2014) reveal that Australian bushfires cost approximately $380 million per annum, a figure incorporating insured losses and broader social costs. Even though Victoria comprises only 3% of the country’s landmass, it has sustained around 50% of the economic damage from bushfires (Buxton et al. 2011).

Large-scale, high intensity fires that remove vegetation expose top soils to erosion and increased runoff after subsequent rainfall (Shakesby et al. 2007). This can increase sediment and nutrient concentrations in nearby waterways, potentially making water supplies unfit for human consumption (Smith et al. 2011; IPCC 2014). During the Black Saturday fires in 2009, 10 billion litres of Melbourne’s drinking water were pumped to safer storage locations because of fears it would be contaminated (Johnston 2009). These bushfires affected about 30% of the catchments that supply Melbourne’s drinking water. Melbourne Water estimated the post-fire recovery costs, including water monitoring programs, to be more than $2 billion (WRF 2013). The 2016 Tasmanian wilderness fire caused more than $130 million in damages to roads, hydro-electric infrastructure and bridges (The Mercury 2016).

Weather conditions conducive to fire in the southeast of the continent are becoming increasingly frequent. The projected increases in hot days across the country, and in consecutive dry days and droughts in these regions, will very likely lead to increased

7 frequencies of days with extreme fire danger (Clarke et al. 2011). Model simulations by CSIRO and BoM (2015) confirm that southern and eastern Australia are projected to experience harsher fire weather.

4.3 Extreme Rainfall As greenhouse gases increase in the atmosphere, primarily carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), the climate system is warming because these gases are trapping more heat. The oceans are also warming, especially at the surface, and this is driving higher evaporation rates that, in turn, increases the amount of water vapour. In addition, a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, leading in turn to more intense rainfall. The 1°C temperature rise that has already occurred, together with increasing evaporation, has led to an increase of about 7% in the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere (Hartmann et al. 2013).

The economic impacts of heavy rainfall can be devastating. One of the worst flooding events in recent times in Australia as a result of heavy rainfall was the Queensland 2010/2011 floods. Extreme and extended rainfall over large areas of Queensland from a strong La Niña event in the latter part of 2010 led to record breaking and very damaging flooding in Queensland in December 2010 and January 2011. December 2010 was Queensland’s wettest December on record (BoM 2011). Approximately 2.5 million people were affected and 29,000 homes and businesses experienced some form of flooding. The economic cost of the flooding was estimated to be in excess of $5 billion (QFCI 2012), with 18,000 homes inundated, damage to 28% of the Queensland rail network and damage to 19,000 km of roads and 3 ports (van den Honert and McAneney 2012). Around 300,000 homes and businesses lost power in Brisbane and Ipswich at some stage during the floods (QFCI 2012).

A 2°C rise in average global temperatures could result in a 10-30% increase in extreme downpours (Bao et al. 2017). In Australia, extreme rainfall events are projected, with high confidence, to increase in intensity, where extreme events are defined as the wettest day of the year and the wettest day in 20 years (CSIRO and BoM 2015; Bao et al. 2017). The tendency for an increase in intensity may be stronger for the larger, rarer events (current 1-in-20 year events) (Rafter and Abbs 2009) particularly at the sub-daily timescale (less than a day/hourly) (Westra et al. 2013). Regionally, increases in heavy rainfall are expected to be less evident in regions where mean rainfall is projected to decline, such as southern Australia (CSIRO and BoM 2007; Pitman and Perkins 2008; Moise and Hudson 2008). Indeed, this projected trend may be less prominent in southwest Western Australia, where large reductions in mean rainfall are projected. However, England et al. (2006) note that an increase in sea surface temperatures will drive more extreme anomalies in the Indian Ocean Dipole (temperature difference between the western and eastern Indian Ocean). This could result in more extreme and periodic rainfall events in southwest Western Australia.

4.4 Tropical Cyclones Trends in tropical cyclone frequency and intensity are difficult to discern for the Australian region due to the short observational records, as well as high year-to-year variability. While some trends have been identified in tropical cyclone data in the past few decades, such as a statistically significant increase in intense cyclone activity in the North Atlantic region since the 1970s (Kossin et al. 2007; IPCC 2013), in other regions the identification of statistically significant trends is limited by the lack of long-term, consistent observational data. This is the case in Australia, where for the 1981 to 2007 period, no significant trends in the number of cyclones or their intensity were found (Kuleshov et al. 2010), although a comparison between tropical cyclone numbers in 1981-82 to 2012-13 shows a decreasing trend (Dowdy 2014).

Climate change is likely to affect tropical cyclone behaviour in two ways. First, the formation of tropical cyclones most readily occurs when there are very warm conditions at the ocean surface and when the vertical gradient is strong. As the climate continues to warm, the difference between the temperature near the surface of the Earth and the temperature higher up in the atmosphere, is likely to decrease as the atmosphere continues to warm. As this vertical gradient weakens, it is likely that fewer tropical cyclones will form (DeMaria et al. 2001; IPCC 2012). Second, the increasing temperature of the surface ocean affects the intensity of cyclones (along with changes in upper atmosphere conditions), both in terms of maximum wind speeds and in the intensity of rainfall that occurs in association with the cyclone. This is because the storms draw energy from the surface waters of the ocean, and as more heat (energy) is stored in these upper waters, the cyclones have a larger source of energy on which to draw (Emanuel 2000; Wing et al. 2007).

Severe tropical cyclone Yasi was one of the most powerful cyclones to have affected Queensland since records began, and was one of Australia’s costliest natural disasters. Cyclone Yasi first hit the North Queensland coast on 2 February 2011, creating widespread damage and contributing to flooding across Queensland. The cyclone brought extreme winds of up to 285 km/h, heavy rain of up to 200-300 mm in 24 hours and storm surges, including a 5 m tidal surge at Cardwell (QRA and World Bank 2011). The costs to the agricultural and tourism industries were estimated at $1.6 billion and $600 million respectively (QRA and World Bank 2011).

Deep low-pressure systems with high winds and heavy rainfall can also develop outside of the tropics, where they are known as extra-tropical cyclones. When such storms occur along the east coast of Australia, they are commonly known as east coast lows. Observations show a slight decreasing trend in the number of east coast lows over the past several decades (Dowdy et al. 2013). Extra-tropical cyclones can also occur as deep low pressure systems from the Southern Ocean that can batter South Australia and Victoria, such as the storm that knocked out the electricity distribution system across South Australia in late September 2016. This 1-in-50 year storm triggered 80,000 lightning strikes, carried wind gusts of up to 260 km/h and spawned tornadoes across the state.

An east coast low brought intense rainfall to the NSW coast and Hunter Valley, causing widespread flooding in April 2015. The 1-in-100 year rainfall event dropped more than 400 mm of rain in 48 hours, with wind gusts of 135 km/h in Newcastle (Naumann 2015). Damage from the storm resulted in $950 million in insured losses (Understand Insurance 2016) and caused additional losses of $110 million to the tourism industry (Naumann 2015).

An increase is likely in the proportion of the most intense tropical cyclones, those with stronger winds and heavier rainfall such as Yasi, while the total number of tropical cyclones will likely decrease. A greater proportion of tropical cyclones may reach further south along Australia’s east and west coastlines (CSIRO and BoM 2015).

For more information about climate change and extreme weather events, please refer to the Climate Council’s report ‘Cranking Up The Intensity: Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events’ (Climate Council 2017b). 5. water supply Climate change is likely making drought conditions in southwest and southeast Australia worse (Climate Council 2015). The drying trend is related to the southward shift of the fronts from the Southern Ocean that bring rain across southern Australia during the cool months of the year (winter and spring) (CSIRO and BoM 2015). Water scarcity in major cities, particularly Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, has been exacerbated by drought and remains an ongoing challenge. Reduced rainfall typically lessens stream flow disproportionately more than the reduction in rainfall. For example, the rainfall decline in southwest Western Australia of 19% since the mid- 1970s has reduced the annual average stream flow into Perth’s dams by nearly 80% (WC 2012; Figure 2). In Melbourne, stage 3 water restrictions were implemented from 2007 to 2010, and by 2009 the city’s water storage levels fell to a record minimum of 25.6% (Melbourne Water 2013). Assessments of future impacts of drought on both water supply and urban water demand at the regional and/ or catchment level suggest that water scarcity could increase across Australia. In NSW, under a high emissions scenario along with high population growth and less rapid technological change, water inflows to key Sydney dams such as Warragamba and Shoalhaven could decrease by as much as 25% by 2070 (NSW Office of Water 2010).

Figure 2: Trend in total annual stream flow into Perth dams 1911–2012. Source: Climate Commission 2013.

These declines, coupled with a continued rise in annual demand for drinking water in the residential and commercial sectors, could increase the imposition of water restrictions in the state (NSW Office of Water 2010). The projected increase in duration and intensity of droughts in southeast Queensland (CSIRO and BoM 2015) is expected to increase the length of time it takes to refill key water storages in the region. An assessment of climate change impacts on water availability in the Moreton catchment (which serves Brisbane, Ipswich and other urban centres) has found a decline in inflow into water storages when it rains, and longer breaks between significant ‘storage filling events’ (UWSRA 2011).

The pronounced drying trend over southwest Australia, which is projected to continue throughout the 21st century, has significant implications for urban water supplies in Perth (Collett and Henry 2011). The Western Australia Department of Water (2009) predicts a supply-demand annual deficit that is potentially as large as 85 billion litres by 2030 for the Perth, goldfields and agricultural regions and some parts of the southwest. To put this into context, Western Australia’s Integrated Water Supply Scheme (IWSS) currently delivers 289 billion litres of water to over 2 million people in the region each year. A deficit of 85 billion litres is equivalent to approximately 30% of current water supply (WA Water Corporation 2014). 6. Recommendations

The more we know about climate change, the riskier it looks. This conclusion underscores the need for emissions from human activities, such as the burning of coal, oil and gas for electricity, to be trending sharply downwards by 2020 to protect Australians and our infrastructure from climate extremes. Transitioning urgently to a new, low carbon economy is critical.

Recommendation 1: Based on the best available science, Australia should, as a bare minimum, increase its target and set its policies to reduce its emissions between 45 to 65% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Recommendation 2: Introduce a national transition plan for Australia’s electricity system that:

• Ramps up a diverse range of renewable energy, energy efficiency and storage technologies to enable the phase out of fossil fuelled electricity generation by 2040; • Achieves at least 50% renewables by 2030; • Is secure and robust, particularly in light of worsening extreme weather events; and • Reaches net zero emissions well before 2050, aiming for 2040.

Recommendation 3: In order to climate proof infrastructure, the design, building, financing and maintenance of infrastructure must use the best available climate science and adaptation information available from premier agencies such as CSIRO and BoM.

Recommendation 4: Continued Federal Government funding of CSIRO, BoM and other relevant institutions with a focus on research, policy and planning into all aspects of the climate change challenge, that is, to provide support for research that underpins how critical infrastructure such as road, railways, airports, hospitals and schools, residential and commercial buildings can become climate resilient.

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