Agenda for change 2022: Shaping a different future for our nation

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In line with previous Agenda for Change publications from 2016 and 2019, this piece is being released in anticipation of a federal election as a guide for the next government within its first months and over the full term. Our 2022 agenda acknowledges that an economically prosperous and socially cohesive Australia is a secure and resilient Australia.

ASPI’s Agenda for change 2019: strategic choices for the next government did, to a great extent, imagine a number of those challenges, including in Peter Jennings’ chapter on ‘The big strategic issues’. But a lot has changed since 2019. It was hard to imagine the dislocating impacts of the Black Summer fires, Covid-19 in 2020 and then the Delta and Omicron strains in 2021, trade coercion from an increasingly hostile China, or the increasingly uncertain security environment.

Fast forward to today and that also applies to the policies and programs we need to position us in a more uncertain and increasingly dangerous world.

Our Agenda for change 2022 acknowledges that what might have served us well in the past won’t serve us well in this world of disruption. In response, our authors propose a smaller number of big ideas to address the big challenges of today and the future. Under the themes of getting our house in order and Australia looking outward, Agenda for change 2022 focuses on addressing the strategic issues from 2021 and beyond.

ASPI Climate Security Wrap

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Amidst the lead up to the COP26 Climate Summit, ASPI has published a number of updates on climate security.

Dr. Robert Glasser and Anastasia Kapetas have reflected on the recent release of US climate security intelligence estimates, and suggested that these estimates probably underestimate the risks we face.

Dr. Glasser has also placed the PM’s announcement on Net Zero within the context of worsening natural disasters and Australia’s key alliance relationships

Given the clear warnings from the IPCC about concurrent and compounding climate disasters, the Climate and Security Centre has also argued that the US and Australia must deepen cooperation in relevant areas.

US and Australia must deepen defence cooperation on climate security

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Robert Glasser and Erin Sikorsky write on recent climate-driven disasters and how Australia and the US can cooperate to tackle this crisis.

Read the full article here.

The rapidly emerging crisis on our doorstep

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This Strategic Insight report warns that within a decade, as the climate continues to warm, the relatively benign strategic environment in Maritime Southeast Asia – a region of crucial importance to Australia – will begin unravelling. Dr Robert Glasser, Head of ASPI’s new Climate and Security Policy Centre, documents the region’s globally unique exposure to climate hazards, and the increasingly significant cascading societal impacts they will trigger.

Dr Glasser notes that hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying coastal areas will not only experience more severe extremes, but also more frequent swings from extreme heat and drought to severe floods. The diminishing time for recovery in between these events will have major consequences for food security, population displacements and resilience.

According to Dr Glasser, ‘Any one of the numerous increasing risks identified in the report would be serious cause for concern for Australian policymakers, but the combination of them, emerging effectively simultaneously, suggests that we’re on the cusp of an overlooked, unprecedented and rapidly advancing regional crisis.’

The report presents several policy recommendations for Australia, including the need to greatly expand the Government’s capacity to understand and identify the most likely paths through which disruptive climate events (individually, concurrently, or consecutively) can cause cascading, security-relevant impacts, such as disruptions of critical supply chains, galvanized separatist movements, climate refugees, opportunistic intervention by outside powers, political instability, and conflict.

Dr Glasser also proposes that Australia should identify priority investments to scale-up the capability within Defence, Foreign Affairs, the intelligence agencies, Home Affairs and other key agencies to recognise and respond to emerging regional climate impacts, including by supporting our regional neighbours to build their climate resilience.

A Pacific disaster prevention review

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Disaster risk reduction is a global policy issue. Reducing the likelihood and severity of damage and related cascading and cumulative impacts from natural hazards has become central to all nations and   has triggered the  evolution of international cooperation, multilateral responses and humanitarian aid efforts over many years.

The nexus between natural hazards and vulnerability is central to appreciating the scale of the damage caused by large disasters and resultant sociotechnical impacts. Multilateral efforts to mitigate the impacts of weather and climate hazards have progressed over time.  The Yokohama Strategy for a Safer World: Guidelines for Natural Disaster Prevention, Preparedness and Mitigation was a harbinger for the Hyogo Framework for Action, which emphasised building the resilience of communities and nations to the effects of disasters, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction as the current flagship of unified effort.

Pacific island countries (PICs) have long been affected by weather-related disasters. Many PICs have been listed among the top 10 most disaster-prone countries in the World Risk Index over several years. In addition to damaging winds a convergence of flash flooding, king tides and high intensity rainfall contributed to damage to essential services, food supply and displacement of people across island economies. 

This year marks the fifth year of applying the Sendai Framework to Disaster risk reduction efforts globally – completing one-third of the Framework’s operational life cycle.  It seems an opportune time to take stock of the challenges faced by selected PICs in incorporating guidance from the Sendai Framework into policy, legislation and practice.  

This report details independent views on challenges to implementing the Sendai Framework in eight Pacific economies.  It does not pursue an in-depth analysis of constraints or impediments to implementation of the framework but seeks to present independent views on the ‘fit’ of the Sendai Framework to local needs in a general context of the Four priorities central to the Framework.

It hoped that it can contribute to ongoing discussion and thought about important issues in a vibrant yet vulnerable region.

Preparing for the Era of Disasters

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Preparing for the Era of Disasters, a new ASPI Special Report by Dr Robert Glasser, warns that we are entering a new era in the security of Australia, not because of terrorism, the rise of China or even the cybersecurity threat, but because of climate change.

As the world warms beyond 2°C, as now seems increasingly likely, an era of disasters will be upon us with profound implications for how we organise ourselves to protect Australian lives, property and economic interests and our way of life.

The Report surveys the features of this emerging era of disasters including an increase in concurrent extreme weather events and in events that follow in closer succession. Communities may manage the first few but, in their weakened state, be overwhelmed by those following. Large parts of the country that are currently marginally viable for agriculture are increasingly likely to be in chronic crisis from the compounding impacts of the steady rise of temperature, floods, drought and bushfires. Dr Glasser contends that the scale of those impacts will be unprecedented, and the patterns that the hazards take will change in ways that will be difficult to anticipate.

He notes that this emerging Era of Disasters will not only increasingly stretch emergency services, undermine community resilience and escalate economic costs and losses of life, but also have profound implications for food security in our immediate region, with cascading impacts that will undermine Australia’s national security.

Dr Glasser outlines a number of steps the Australian Government and the state and local governments should begin taking now to prepare for the unprecedented scale of these emerging challenges, including:

  1. scale-up Australia’s efforts to prevent the effects from natural hazards, such as from extreme weather, from becoming disasters through greater investment in disaster risk reduction.
  2. increased planning for financial support to States for economic recovery following disasters and “fodder banks” and “land banks” to address the needs of communities in chronic crisis and the permanently displaced.
  3. strengthening disaster response capacity and planning at all levels, including in the military which will play an increasingly important role in transporting firefighters and equipment, fodder drops from helicopters and the provision of shelters, etc.  Joint task forces to coordinate the defence contribution, like the one established during the Black Saturday Victorian bushfires, will become increasingly necessary.
  4. ensure that flood and bushfire risk maps, building codes, planning schemes, infrastructure delivery and the supporting legislation fully embed consideration of climate change effects.

Bolstering national disaster resilience: what can be done?

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This report outlines the goals of ASPI’s Risk and Resilience Program. It introduces several broad areas to be covered and measures to strengthen mitigation, response and recovery options spanning the community, state and federal spheres. The program will contribute to our long-term thinking on how best to prepare for and recover from disasters.

Working as one: A road map to disaster resilience for Australia

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Natural disasters cause widespread disruption, costing the Australian economy $6.3 billion per year, and those costs are projected to rise incrementally to $23 billion by 2050.

With more frequent natural disasters with greater consequences, Australian communities need the ability to prepare and plan for them, absorb and recover from them, and adapt more successfully to their effects.

Enhancing Australian resilience will allow us to better anticipate disasters and assist in planning to reduce losses, rather than just waiting for the next king hit and paying for it afterwards.

This report offers a roadmap for enhancing Australia’s disaster resilience, building on the 2011 National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. It includes a snapshot of relevant issues and current resilience efforts in Australia, outlining key challenges and opportunities.

The report sets out 11 recommendations to help guide Australia towards increasing national resilience, from individuals and local communities through to state and federal agencies.

Special Report Issue 49 – Heavy weather: climate and the Australian Defence Force

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The report, authored by Anthony Press, Anthony Bergin, and Eliza Garnsey, argues that the downstream implications of climate change are forcing Defence to become involved in mitigation and response tasks. Defence’s workload here will increase, so we need a new approach.

Heavy Weather makes a number of recommendations including:

  • Defence should work with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency to establish an inter-agency working group on climate change and security. It would focus on addressing climate event scenarios for Australia and the Asia–Pacific  to manage the risks those scenarios pose to national resilience and regional stability.
  • Defence should appoint an adviser to the Chief of the Defence Force on climate issues to develop a Responding to Climate Change Plan that details how Defence will manage the effects of climate change on its operations and infrastructure.
  • Defence should audit its environmental data to determine its relevance for climate scientists and systematically make that data publicly available. It should set up an energy audit team to see where energy efficiencies can be achieved in Defence.
  • Australia should work with like-minded countries in the ‘Five Eyes’ community to share best practice and thinking on how military organisations should best respond to extreme weather events.

The recommendations aren’t about Defence having a ‘green’ view of the world: they’re about the ADF being well placed to deal with the potential disruptive forces of climate change.  

You can watch authors Anthony Bergin and Tony Press discussing this report here and here.

Special Report Issue 17 – The thin green line: Climate change and Australian policing

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This report examines the implications of climate change for Australia’s police forces and officers.

The report has a number of recommendations including the creation of an information hub and the development of risk assessments of the locations that will be most affected by climate change as part of a multi-agency strategic approach to climate change adaptation.