Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment has been a long time coming

by David Spratt

The Australian Government’s soon-to-be-released first National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA), which will be focused on domestic climate risks, has received some recent media coverage here and here.  Here is the story on the long evolution of the NCRA and what to expect.

Australia has never had a comprehensive climate risk assessment.  It has been a glaring omission because such assessments are a necessary basis for efficacious climate mitigation and adaptation policymaking.

In 2021, the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG), a group of former defence and security leaders, proposed to the Labor opposition (and the Morrison Government) that a comprehensive climate risk assessment be undertaken as a matter of urgency, and this was included in the ALP’s 2022 election platform. The case was made in an ASLCG report, Missing in action.

Climate intervention in the thick present

 

by Anni Pokela, first published at operaatioarktis

Anni Pokela is a founding member of, and srategist for, the Finnish group Operaatio Arktis, a youth-led project that works for preserving Arctic Sea ice and preventing the crossing of Earth's tipping points. This is the text of a speech she delivered  at St. John's College, Cambridge as part of the Arctic Repair Conference in June 2025.

About 4 years ago, I was being escorted to a police van for protesting with Extinction Rebellion Finland. We had closed down a main road in central Helsinki and demanding that the Finnish Government hasten their climate action.

I had previously not been at all into the climate movement or environmentalism. As a teenager I felt like maybe that wasn't trendy enough or punk rock enough – and then came Extinction Rebellion. They spoke about climate impacts in a way that I'd never heard before. They were really concrete about it: they talked about death tolls and diseases and the horrible violence we are facing. 

 

And so to this day I think the fear of death is what inspired me into climate action. Pretty self-centered and grim, now that I think about it.

 

But my point is that I didn't feel climate anxiety. I felt climate grief, and climate rage. I wanted to have a kid in the future, and I was so angry because I felt like that had been taken away from me. It wasn't hope that got me to act. It was despair.

Will Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment be more omission than commission?

 

by David Spratt, first published at Pearls&Irritations

The Albanese Government will soon deliver Australia’s first domestically-oriented National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December 2024. Will it describe the full spectrum of climate risks Australians will face in the future, or be marred by a poor approach to risk analysis, bureaucratic incompetence and a limited vision?

In mid-2022, shortly after assuming office, the Albanese Government ordered a climate and security risk assessment, in line with a pre-election commitment. The analysis was undertaken by the Office of National Intelligence and delivered to the government in late 2022. It focused on the region and did not specifically cover domestic risks. Since then, the government has barely said a word about the ONI findings or about climate-security risks, has not released the analysis in any declassified form and has indicated it does not intend to do so.