Australia’s Country Towns 2050 Presentation to the NCCARF Symposium UNSW June 2011

1. Australia’s Country Towns 2050 Presentation to the NCCARF Symposium UNSW June 2011 Professor Andrew Beer Regional Co-operation and Development Forum Canberra June 2011

2. Project Aims • First, the project will test two hypotheses: • a) that many inland rural and remote communities are vulnerable to the primary and secondary impacts of climate change and that this varies by location, industry structure, environment, and remoteness; • b) that public sector and community planning and action can reduce the impacts of climate change on the sustainability of a settlement and that some forms of intervention will be more effective than others. • Second, it sets out to inform governments, communities and industry about inland settlement patterns in a climate change adapted rural and regional Australia • Third, it will shed light on the sets of processes – environmental, social, economic and demographic – that will reshape Australia’s rural and regional settlement pattern as a consequence of global warming. The project recognises that non-metropolitan Australia will be greatly affected by climate change in ways that differ greatly from the capital cities. • Fourth, the research seeks to contribute to economically and socially vibrant communities in rural, regional and remote Australia by developing a suite of tools that assist policy makers evaluate the probable impact of climate change on both individual communities and groups of settlements, while at the same time highlighting effective strategies that can be implemented by individual communities and settlements.

3. Australia’s Country Towns 2050 • What are the deliverables? • develop a composite index of climate change vulnerability for all rural and regional settlements across Australia; • assess the climate-change readiness of inland rural and regional communities; • forecast the likely impacts of climate change on non-metropolitan settlements; • document the adaptation strategies currently being employed by rural and regional communities across inland Australia; • assemble key data sets that can be used to assess the impact of climate change on rural and regional settlements over the past 20 years and into the future; • assemble a ‘toolkit’ of effective strategies for climate adaptation in inland rural and regional Australia to be used by individual towns/communities, as well as state and national policy makers; • communicate the results to governments, other key stakeholders and the broader Australian community; and • prepare a series of assessments and policy recommendations.

4. Intellectual and Policy Challenges • This research addresses a number of intellectual and policy challenges. • First, how vulnerable are inland Australia’s rural and remote settlements to the first order and second order changes that will be ushered in by climate change? • Second, which centres and types of settlement will be most vulnerable as a result of climate change and how is that vulnerability affected by geography, economy, remoteness and demographic processes? • Third, how adequate are current measures for addressing the impacts of climate change and what constitutes ‘best practice’ in this area? • Fourth, what are the processes, mechanisms and sites (Pike et al 2010) that build resilience in Australia’s country towns and other regional centres and how can they be further developed? • Fifth, what policies and strategies at the national and other levels will best enhance the resilience and adaptability of Australia’s country towns and other regional settlements?