ON THE FRONTLINE: CLIMATE CHANGE & RURAL COMMUNITIES CLIMATECOUNCIL.ORG.AU Thank you for supporting the Climate Council. The Climate Council is an independent, crowd-funded organisation providing quality information on climate change to the Australian public. Published by the Climate Council of Australia Limited ISBN: 978-0-9945973-9-7 (print) 978-0-9945973-0-4 (web) © Climate Council of Australia Ltd 2016 This work is copyright the Climate Council of Australia Ltd. All material contained in this work is copyright the Climate Council of Australia Ltd except where a third party source is indicated. Climate Council of Australia Ltd copyright material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License. To view a copy of this license visit http://creativecommons.org.au. You are free to copy, communicate and adapt the Climate Council of Australia Ltd copyright material so long as you attribute the Climate Council of Australia Ltd and the authors in the following manner: On the Frontline: Climate Change & Rural Communities (Climate Council of Australia) by Lesley Hughes, Lauren Rickards, Will Steffen, Petra Stock and Martin Rice. The authors contain sole responsibility for the contents of this report. — Image credit: Cover photo Beautiful country area with small town and brightly colored fields. Copyright: THPStock. This report is printed on 100% recycled paper. facebook.com/climatecouncil [email protected] twitter.com/climatecouncil climatecouncil.org.au CLIMATE COUNCIL I Preface Australia’s rural and regional communities experience many disadvantages compared to their urban counterparts. Unemployment rates are higher, and they experience greater rates of poverty and reduced access to health, education and transport services. The risks posed by climate change to health, security, environmental assets and economy threaten to exacerbate many of the social, economic and health inequalities already experienced by those in rural and regional areas. Rural and regional communities are particularly vulnerable to increasing droughts, bushfires and heatwaves being driven by climate change. Furthermore, decreases in rainfall significantly reduce runoff and increased temperatures result in high evaporation rates, with serious implications for water availability in rural and regional areas. In addition to affecting agricultural production, climate change also threatens to increase the cost of essential goods and services and rural and regional communities are often poorly equipped to deal with the health impacts of higher temperatures. While all Australians will be affected by these challenges, those living in rural communities will be the worst affected. This report focuses on how climate change is affecting, and will continue to affect rural communities that are largely reliant on primary agricultural production. We recognise that climate change will also have important impacts on rural and regional communities via effects on sectors such as fisheries, forestry, mining and tourism – these impacts will be explored in future reports. We have also provided more detail on how climate change will continue to affect Australian agriculture in our report “Feeding a Hungry Nation: Climate Change, Food and Farming in Australia”. While climate change poses many challenges and risks to rural landholders and their communities, transitioning to new ways of producing energy also provides many opportunities. Rural landholders manage the majority of Australia’s land area, and so their collective actions have important implications for our water supplies, food production, and environment, and can play an important role in moving to a more sustainable, healthier, and prosperous Australia. Thanks to Climate Council staff and our research volunteers Emily Hegarty, Jacqueline King and Sally Macdonald. We are very grateful to the reviewers of the report for their frank and constructive comments: Professor Hilary Bambrick (Western Sydney University), Andy Cavanagh-Downs (Embark), Dr Elizabeth Hanna (Australian National University and Climate and Health Alliance), and Dr. Anthony Kiem (University of Newcastle). We also thank Dr Peter Hayman (PIRSA-SARDI) for reviewing the report. His review should not be interpreted as an endorsement by the South Australian Government of all the conclusions drawn in this report. Responsibility for the final content of the report remains with the authors. Professor Lesley Hughes Dr Lauren Rickards Professor Will Steffen Petra Stock Dr Martin Rice Climate Councillor RMIT University Climate Councillor Energy Systems Researcher Head of Research Climate Council Climate Council Climate Council Climate Council II ON THE FRONTLINE: CLIMATE CHANGE & RURAL COMMUNITIES Key Findings 1 2 3 Rural and regional communities The systemic disadvantages Rural and regional are disproportionately affected experienced by rural and communities are already by the impacts of climate regional communities over adapting to the impacts of change. those in urban areas are likely climate change but there are to worsen if climate change limits and costs. › Climate change is worsening continues unabated. extreme weather events such › Adaptation to cope with a as bushfires and drought › Rural and regional communities changing climate may be and rural and regional have already seen a significant relatively incremental, such communities will continue to reduction in population that as changing sowing and be disproportionately affected. has prompted further losses in harvesting dates, or switching services and unemployment. to new breeds of livestock and › Many agricultural businesses Climate change will further new varieties of crops. surveyed have used financial exacerbate these stresses. reserves and/or have taken on › More substantial adaptation increased debt in response to › Strong climate action is options may involve changing extreme weather events. required to protect rural and production systems (eg. regional communities from the from cropping to grazing), or › Australia’s agricultural worsening impacts. relocating to more suitable sector is showing signs of areas. decreasing capacity and faltering productivity gains › The more transformational and the resilience of some rural adaptive changes may be risky industries is under threat. and expensive, especially for individual farmers. › As the climate continues to change, adaptation will become increasingly challenging. KEY FINDINGS III 4 While rural and regional › Farmers can build the climate- communities are on the resilience of their farms by frontline of climate change adding additional revenue impacts, tackling climate streams, such as by hosting change also provides these wind turbines and other communities with many renewable energy projects. opportunities. Across Australia, approximately $20.6 million is paid annually › In Australia, rural areas receive in lease payments to farmers around 30 - 40% of the total and landholders hosting wind investment in renewables, turbines. valued at $1-2 billion per year. › Community funds and › Renewable energy projects additional rate revenue for bring jobs and investment rural and regional areas from into rural and regional renewable energy can be used communities. Delivering half of to improve public services our electricity from renewable such as schools and local sources by 2050 would create infrastructure. more than 28,000 jobs. › Renewable energy can reduce › The transition to clean energy electricity costs for rural will also reduce the health and remote communities, burden of burning coal, which who traditionally pay much is almost entirely borne by higher prices than their urban rural and regional areas, eg the counterparts. It also offers Hunter and Latrobe valleys. independence from the grid with several towns now racing to be the first to operate on 100% renewable energy. climatecouncil.org.au IV ON THE FRONTLINE: CLIMATE CHANGE & RURAL COMMUNITIES Contents Preface ................................................................................................................................................................................................ i Key Findings ....................................................................................................................................................................................ii 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................. 1 2. The Setting .............................................................................................................................................................................. 2 2.1 Rural Communities in Australia 3 2.2 Australian Agriculture and Rural Industries 7 2.3 Rural Landscapes 10 3. Observed and Projected Changes in Australia’s Climate ........................................................................................ 12 4. Risks From Climate Change ............................................................................................................................................. 20 4.1 Impacts on Agricultural Production 24 4.2 Impacts of Extreme Events 34 4.3 Impacts on Human Health 41 4.4 Impacts on Communities 48 5. Adapting to the Impacts of a Changing Climate ....................................................................................................... 50 5.1 Climate Change Adaptation: The Concept 51 5.2 Adaptation Options 52 5.2.1 Generic