Speech to the Australian Climate Service Three-Year Strategy launch, Canberra

Good morning, all.

I’d also like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet today, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging, and all First Nations people here.

I'm delighted to be here with you today to launch the Australian Climate Service Three-Year Strategy.

That’s partly because the challenge of a climate that is warming and shifting to volatile extremes is unlike anything we've faced before, and responding to those circumstances will require governments, businesses, and communities to work together in new ways.

That's why it's important we come together today. Not just to launch a strategy, but to continue a conversation about how we can keep advancing this vital imperative to make better decisions about climate risk and resilience. 

And to open a conversation about where each of you may find value or identify intersecting interests as we progress toward better-informed, guided, and tested decision-making for climate risks.

So, thank you all for making the effort to be here.

Before we jump into the importance of what the strategy is looking to do, I first want to take a moment to officially welcome Ella Harrison to the ACS.

Ella has recently come on board as Acting Head of the ACS and with aplomb picked up the reins at a critical time, following the excellent service of Vicki Manson. 

Ella brings very substantial expertise in flood response and community resilience and a strong strategic emphasis to the role at this key moment of transition.

Please join me in giving Ella a warm welcome.

I do also want to acknowledge the tremendous contribution of outgoing head Vicki Manson, who has been at the helm of the ACS since its creation five years ago.

Vicki formed and steered a first-of-a-kind partnership agency for government, bringing together the expertise of the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geoscience Australia.

Those are four of Australia’s most capable entities – and harnessing the significant climate-specific input from those high-calibre outfits in a coordinated fashion was a key achievement in the first quarter of the 21st century. 

During Vicki's tenure, the ACS has built the foundation of an impressive and necessary national climate risk capability.

One that brings together Australia's leading climate science, data and analytical heft to support the difficult judgements we need to make when it comes to adaptation, risk-reduction, and resilience.

Over its first five years, the ACS has delivered a range of nationally significant datasets and services, helping to establish a stronger evidence base for our present and future work.

And last September, the ACS successfully delivered Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment.

We can be proud of the fact that Australia is one of only a handful of countries to have committed the resources required to undertake an assessment of this scale and complexity.

When the Government commissioned the NCRA, we knew Australia needed a clearer and more structured picture of the risks we face from climate change, both the impacts we're already seeing and the extrapolation of risk-factors into the future. 

We needed a nationally consistent evidence base to help inform and guide future action. 

The NCRA broke new ground by taking a systems approach to understanding climate risk. Rather than looking at single hazards in isolation, it showed how acute climate impacts and chronic climate effects interact, compound, and potentially cascade through our economy, our communities and our institutions.

It is therefore a collective achievement that we should celebrate; but, most importantly, that we should build upon. 

A unique feature of the NCRA was its capacity to provide, for the first time, a nationally consistent picture of climate risk across Australia.

This gave us a clearer understanding of how climate risks are already shaping decisions across governments, businesses and communities. 

The challenge now is to turn greater clarity into decisions and actions that are enhanced by that foresight. And that's why we're here this morning. 

The three-year ACS Strategy sets a sensibly-bounded direction of travel for our future effort.

The strategy is all about the priority work that will tailor the ACS capability for application to the assessment and decision-making that are at the front of the queue; the assessments and decisions that are necessary to reduce future harm and to improve future resilience. 

For that reason, the strategy is deliberately focused on two priority decision lenses: Future Loss and Damage, and People and Community Vulnerability.

We've chosen these priorities because they align with the sharpest intersections of hazard risk, exposure, and systemic value and because they are areas where the Australian Climate Service can make a real and present difference.

The Future Loss and Damage work will help identify current and emerging climate risk hotspots, estimate future economic and social impacts, and provide information that supports practical decisions about resilience and risk-reduction investment.

Our second priority, People and Community Vulnerability, reflects a simple reality: namely that climate impacts are ultimately experienced by people.

We know that the greatest cost and structural harm is inflicted by floods; we know that the greatest impact on human health is inflicted by heat – especially the combination of sustained heat and humidity. Both will take a toll on our communities – and the greatest harm will be felt by those already experiencing disadvantage.

That’s why this work will help identify communities particularly exposed to hazards and bear down on the factors that influence resilience and adaptive capacity.

That could include maps showing where vulnerability is increasing, information about why specific communities are more exposed, and insights that help target adaptation investment where it can make the greatest difference.

By the end of this strategy, we will have made serious progress in honing the findings of the NCRA into practical tools that directly support pressing and consequential decisions.

Done well, this work can make communities safer, protect our economy and give Australians greater confidence about the future.

Ultimately, it will place us in the best position to make informed choices and policy responses, avoid maladaptation and understand trade-offs.

As we approach the end of another tumultuous year, and as we enter the high-risk weather season at the beginning of what is being described as a Super El Niño event, I am very mindful of the contribution our work must make to economic and community resilience, which in turn is essential to underpin social cohesion and preserve trust in our institutions. 

None of this can be achieved by the ACS alone. 

Success will require deep cooperation across governments, sectors, and organisations.

Both the NCRA process and the findings made that abundantly clear, especially when we see the impacts of cascading and compounding risks across systems.

Building Australia's resilience depends on bringing together the best science and data with practical knowledge and real-world experience.

That is why the partnerships represented in this room today matter so much. 

And it's why each of you has an important role to play.

From contributing to the science and data to participating in end-user decision making.

Making sure that Australia can bring an adaptation and resilience lens to all areas of life – and that as we link climate risk capability to critical decision-points, we measure and learn from the outcomes.

I'll finish by noting that it's particularly fitting we're having this conversation on the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Our work is core to that endeavour – first and foremost in Australia, but also in partnership with countries in our region.

The value of this work comes when it shapes decisions; when it creates effective outcomes.

When it helps a council decide where to invest in hazard-proof infrastructure.

When it helps businesses understand and manage their exposure.

And when it helps communities become safer and stronger and gives them agency and optimism.

The National Climate Risk Assessment has given Australia the most detailed, informative, and magnifiable picture we've ever had of the risks we face.

This strategy is about making sure that knowledge is put to work; that expertise is harnessed in the service of our decision-making.

Climate change is with us everywhere, all the time. We live with its acute manifestations every year; we have to absorb its chronic effects on things as they are, and in respect of things we propose to embark on. 

The decisions we make from now on will shape how prepared we are in the years and decades ahead.

If we apply the capability we’ve developed and work together, we can reduce future losses, strengthen resilience, protect communities, and build a more secure and resolute Australia.

That's the opportunity and the imperative before us.

And that's why the work of the Australian Climate Service matters.

Thank you.