National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy

The National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2021-2025, released on 29 October 2021, aims to position Australia to better anticipate, manage and adapt to our changing climate. The Strategy sets out what the Australian Government will do to support efforts across all levels of government, businesses and the community, to better anticipate, manage and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The Strategy recognises that adaptation is a shared responsibility that requires sustained and ongoing action. It operates across four domains – natural, built, social and economic.

The Strategy details three objectives to enable more effective adaptation across Australia:

  • Objective 1 - Drive investment and action through collaboration
  • Objective 2 - Improve climate information and services
  • Objective 3 - Assess progress and improve over time.

The Australian Government’s National Adaptation Policy Office (NAPO) oversees implementation of this Strategy, coordinates work on climate adaptation across all governments, reports on Australia’s adaptation progress and provides a central point of contact and information on adaptation for businesses and communities.

Objectives

Objective 1 - Drive investment and action through collaboration

Governments, businesses and communities collaborate to build resilience and adapt.

To support this, the Australian Government will:

  • provide enhanced national leadership and coordination
  • partner with governments, businesses and communities to act and invest.

Objective 2 - Improve climate information and services

Australia has information to better predict, manage and adapt to climate change.

To support this, the Australian Government will:

  • deliver coordinated climate information and services to more users
  • continuing to deliver world class climate science that informs successful adaptation.

Objective 3 - Assess progress and improve over time

Australia assesses national climate impacts, evaluates adaptation progress and continuously improves.

To support this, the Australian Government will:

  • deliver national assessments of climate impacts and adaptation progress
  • independently assess progress over time.

Adaptation across domains

Climate change poses growing challenges to our economic prosperity, the amenity of cities and regions, the health of our environment and ecosystem services, and the wellbeing of our communities.

The strategy uses four domains – natural, built, social and economic – to frame its approach to coordinated adaptation.

Read more about adaptation across domains.

Engagement

The National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy was informed by engagement across all levels of governments, key stakeholders in industry and academia, and community groups.

We conducted workshops with over 300 participants across natural, built, social and economic domains. We also completed a Have Your Say process that attracted over 200 responses.

Our stakeholder engagement process included targeted consultation with peak bodies, community service organisations, local councils, healthcare and social service organisations and Indigenous organisations.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this process.

Read more