Climate and disaster resilience
In response to the bushfires of 2019-2020 in Australia, CSIRO was tasked in January 2020 by the Prime Minister to deliver an independent study recommending ways in which Australia can increase its climate and disaster resilience, supported by an Expert Advisory Panel chaired by Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel.
This work has been guided by the following principles:
- Evidence-based analysis informed by literature lived experience and expert inputs;
- A focus on where research, science and technology can contribute to building resilience;
- Acknowledgement of past improvements and the importance of complementarity, with a number of related reviews, reports and inquiries currently underway including the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements;
- CSIRO’s role in providing relevant insights to inform policymakers but not policy advice.
To realise these opportunities, this study makes a detailed series of findings and recommendations which form the basis for a forward plan of action. The themes of these are:
- A harmonised and collaborative national approach is required to achieve global best practice;
- The national approach requires systems thinking and solutions to deal with complexity – including foresight, management of risk and learning and education for all stakeholders;
- Availability of data is a key enabler – there is a compelling case to shift to common approaches and platforms for both resilience planning frameworks and operational management systems;
- The community plays an essential role in all phases of resilience building and must be appropriately included and engaged;
- Investment in targeted research, science and technology remains a key enabler of many of the improvements required to build resilience;
- We need to build back better. Resilience needs to be embedded as an explicit consideration in all future planning, agricultural and urban land use and zoning and investment decisions.