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This document reports on issues related to climate change and environmental pressures experienced by Australian coastal areas, particularly in the context of coastal population growth, with particular regard to: (i) existing policies and programs related

In an interview with BBC World News, Margareta Wahlstrom, UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, stressed the importance of urban planning and creating safe living environments following the flooding and landslides that have hit Australia and Brazil.

As well as urgently cutting emissions, nations everywhere need to take steps to adapt to a very different world says Manish Bapna Executive Vice President & Managing Director of the World Resources Institute...

Henry Ergas reports for the Australian on successive governments' oversight that led to development in high risk areas. He calls for a reassessment of policies that he says have failed time after time, and that left as they are, will only fail again...

Climate change has 'likely intensified the monsoon rains that have triggered record floods in Australia's Queensland state', scientists said on Wednesday, with several months of heavy rain and storms still to come, reports Reuters...

'I think the entire city of Brisbane, the Ipswich region and most of the south east, needs to prepare ourselves for enormous disruption,' said Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, after weeks of rain and flooding, reports the Christian Science Monitor...

Severe earthquakes and weather events in 2010 resulted in substantial losses and an exceptionally high number of fatalities: The earthquake in Chile, in contrast to Haiti, saw substantially fewer human losses due to strict building codes; The high number of weather-related events and record temperatures show indications of advancing climate change...

Floods in Australia again underline the need for all countries – both developed and developing – to plan ahead or face increasing economic losses in the face of a “new normal” marked by unpredictable and extreme weather patterns. “Reports from Australia say flood damage may reach $1 billion. With weather patterns becoming more unpredictable and extreme, costs of this magnitude may become commonplace in all parts of the world unless we urgently change the way we think about and react to disasters,” said Margareta Wahlström, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction.