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Healthcare contributes to environmental harm. Trainee-led Research and Audit in Anaesthesia for Sustainable Healthcare (TRA2SH) is an Australasian network focused on sustainable anaesthesia practice. TRA2SH hypothesised that trainee-led audits alongside education presented on a scheduled national day, called Operation Clean Up, can improve engagement with sustainability initiatives. This paper aims to describe the first two years of Operation Clean Up in terms of goals, achievements and data collected so far. Environmental themes for Operation Clean Up were chosen based on available evidence (life cycle analyses and observational studies). The first Operation Clean Up (OCU 2020) focused on reducing the unnecessary use of single-use disposable absorbent pads (known as 'blueys' in Australia, 'greenies' in New Zealand). OCU 2021 included: refuse desflurane, reduce bluey use, reuse drug trays, and recycle paper and cardboard. TRA2SH provided an information pack to trainees who presented educational material to their department and fed back procurement figures to quantify each item. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse de-identified pooled data submitted to a centralised database. Eight departments submitted data for OCU 2020 and six provided follow-up data. Bluey use was reduced from a median of 37 to 34 blueys per ten surgical encounters. Fifteen departments submitted pre-campaign data for OCU 2021 with follow-up data to be collected during OCU 2022. Baseline data showed a median bluey use of 31 per ten surgical encounters. Volatile-related emissions were calculated; desflurane's proportion was 70% of these emissions yet was 11% of volatile procurement. Two participating departments removed desflurane from their formulary following OCU 2021. Operation Clean Up is a practical model for implementing sustainability initiatives using trainees as eco-leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts from the point that our current political‐economic‐climate conjuncture demands new engagements at the dynamic interface of climate capitalism. Using two cases of climate capitalist responses to climate challenges, I demonstrate the reparative potentials that emerge from the tensions and ambiguities that typify that conjuncture. In the first case, I examine financialised climate infrastructure in Jakarta, Indonesia, that promises to protect the city from flooding while enriching city elites, but against which diverse social movements and collectives have organised. The second case is about a cooperative energy provider in Australia, operating on the terrain of a neoliberalised electricity market and climate change, and working towards multifaceted repair by collectivising and redistributing surplus and modelling democratic engagement. Those involved in these vastly different cases both pursue repair and reparations through climate capitalist projects by reckoning with historical and present climate debts while constructing forward‐looking programs. As such, they chart the first steps towards reparative climate futures. This paper identifies the political and socioecological potentials from two key climate capitalist projects: flood protection infrastructures in Jakarta and cooperative energy in Australia. From this, it builds a framework of repair and reparations for engaging with climate capitalism and argues that the emerging tensions and ambiguities facilitate steps towards reparative climate futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildfires pose a severe threat to the ecosystem and economy, and risk assessment is typically based on fire danger indices such as the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) used in Australia. Studying the joint tail dependence structure of high-resolution spatial FFDI data is thus crucial for estimating current and future extreme wildfire risk. However, existing likelihood-based inference approaches are computationally prohibitive in high dimensions due to the need to censor observations in the bulk of the distribution. To address this, we construct models for spatial FFDI extremes by leveraging the sparse conditional independence structure of Hüsler–Reiss-type generalized Pareto processes defined on trees. These models allow for a simplified likelihood function that is computationally efficient. Our framework involves a mixture of tree-based multivariate generalized Pareto distributions with randomly generated tree structures, resulting in a flexible model that can capture nonstationary spatial dependence structures. We fit the model to summer FFDI data from different spatial clusters in Mainland Australia and 14 decadal windows between 1999 and 2022 to study local spatiotemporal variability with respect to the magnitude and extent of extreme wildfires. Our proposed method fits the margins and spatial tail dependence structure adequately and is helpful in providing extreme wildfire risk estimates. Our results identify a significant increase in spatially aggregated fire risk across a substantially large portion of Mainland Australia, which raises serious climatic concerns. Supplementary material to this paper is provided online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The politics of climate change in Australia remains highly fraught, this is despite the country experiencing acute impacts of a changing climate including mega-fires, floods, and severe and prolonged drought. Government inaction has led to limited market signals encouraging producers or consumers to move away from carbon intensive energy production to clean energy. In the absence of regulation, Australian shareholder activists are engaging directly with company boards and executives to reform corporate behaviour. This engagement, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) shareholder activism, has proliferated since 2017, much later than in comparable jurisdictions. Activists have targeted the mining, oil and gas, and finance sectors, due to their contribution to the Australian economy and their direct impact on global emissions. This paper explores the reasons for, and the implications of, the growth in ESG shareholder activism in Australia. It argues that the emergence of this activism in Australia was delayed due to complexities in the country's corporations' law. Regulatory attempts at stymying ESG shareholder activism resulted in the emergence of a duopoly of actors, at the cost of broader investor and civil society engagement. It is concluded that the rise of ESG shareholder activism in Australia is linked to growing tension between societal expectations, regulation, and the behaviour of firms. And, that ESG activists have been successful in leveraging this tension. There is evidence that large corporates have responded to activist claims, rendering this form of activism a potentially effective method for addressing some of the most pressing issues facing society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable food practices are increasingly of interest to scholars and practitioners concerned with the impacts of food production, consumption, and waste in an age of climate change. Attention has been paid to households as actors in addressing sustainability concerns. This paper draws on a national survey of Australian sustainable household practices to offer insights into the ways households are practicing sustainability across three everyday entanglements with food: (1) growing food, (2) consuming food and (3) wasting/disposing of food. The paper explores the types of practices enacted across the three entanglements and provides an understanding of the prevalence and barriers for households adopting sustainable food practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South eastern Australia is a global warming hotspot, and is also home to ~70% of Australia's population and one of Australia's largest fisheries—the South East Scalefish and Shark Fishery. This fishery spans shelf to deep waters, subtropical to temperate waters, employs many gears, and interacts with over 100 species. Despite following best practice fisheries management principles, including taking an ecosystem perspective to overall fisheries interactions, management interventions have failed to arrest or recover the decline of some focal species. Using an Atlantis ecosystem model developed for the fishery over the past 20 years, this paper presents simulations that suggest climate change may be a major contributor to the trajectories seen for a number of species—such as jackass morwong (Nemadactylus macropterus), blue warehou (Seriolella brama), and gemfish (Rexea solandri). This kind of climate influence poses many challenges for fisheries management into the future, raising questions about what to do when climate change undermines or overrides fisheries management actions and objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This perspective paper provides industry leaders, researchers and policy developers strategic approaches to ensure that the welfare of dairy cattle is protected at the same time as the industry increases its resilience to climate change. Farm systems and practices will evolve in response to the direct impacts of climate change and/or from responses to climate change, such as mitigation strategies to reduce dairy's greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. The five domains framework (nutrition, physical environment, health, behaviour, mental state) was used to assess the potential impacts on animal welfare and strategies to minimise these impacts are outlined. Given that the future climate cannot be certain these approaches can be applied under a range of emissions pathways to (1) ensure that the effects of GHG mitigations on animal welfare are considered during their development, (2) engage with end users and the public to ensure solutions to the effects of climate change and weather variability are accepted by consumers and communities, (3) identify and measure the areas where improved animal health can contribute to reducing GHG emissions from dairy production, (4) ensure those supporting farmers to develop and manage their farm systems understand what constitutes a good quality of life for dairy cattle, (5) ensure effective surveillance of animal disease and monitoring of welfare outcomes and farm-system performance in response to climate change and GHG mitigations. Overall, these strategies require a multidisciplinary co-development approach to ensure that the welfare of dairy cattle is protected at the same time as the industry increases its resilience to the wider impacts of a changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Failure of governments across the world to address climate change has fuelled social movements focused on climate-related policy and action. Research analysing these movements has focused mainly on the types of strategies employed including blockades and occupations, marches and petitions, divestment, boycotts and litigation as well as how groups are framing climate change as a problem. What has been largely missed are the ways these groups are framing the change they want to see, that is their demands to governments. Not all demands and actions have the same potential to create the changes needed to mitigate climate change. Used in public health and health promotion, the systems science Intervention Level Framework (ILF) is a tool that can help analyse to what extent different demands have the leverage to create change in a system. We use the ILF to analyse 131 demands from 35 different climate-related advocacy groups in Australia. Results show demands are more focused on lower system leverage points, such as stopping particular projects, rather than on more impactful leverage points, such as the governance structures that determine climate-related policy and decision-making mechanisms. Further, the results highlight the lack of attention on public health related topics of transport and food systems. This paper shows how a systems science framework used in health promotion, the ILF, could enable climate advocacy groups to more effectively target demands to achieve more impactful outcomes from governments, corporations and the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat stress, resulting from elevated heat and absolute humidity associated with climate change, will increasingly occur in the tropics and parts of the mid-latitudes and could threaten the liveability and viability of many regions. Concomitant with predictions of increased heat stress in northern Australia, the Australian Government seeks to boost the population in northern Australia substantially. This paper assesses the heat stress-related wet-bulb temperatures the largest northern centres could experience under Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5 by 2080. The paper finds that substantial population growth could place significant future urban populations at risk from heat stress-related health issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Existing food production systems and dietary behaviours are not healthy nor sustainable due to the higher environmental footprint of animal-derived foods. Alternative dietary choices could provide better outcomes. We investigated Generation Z (Gen Z)'s alternative food preferences within a planetary health framework which combines human and ecological well-being. The paper is based on data from a 2021 cross-national survey conducted in the main Australian cities, which explored Gen Z's attitudes towards meat consumption in relation to climate change and alternatives to animal-based proteins. Climate change is seen as a result of human activities by 86% of the survey participants. More than a third (38%) of them believe that livestock production and the consumption of animal-sourced foods are contributing significantly to climate change and environmental deterioration. The remaining majority (62%), however, has a low awareness and understanding of the food systems' impacts, disbelieving that diet is a major contributor to climate change. We discuss how these findings will shape Australia's Gen Z, climate change and the future of alternative proteins. Scientific evidence shows that current food systems are impacting the planet in ways that are unsustainable and detrimental to human health. Various technological advances have been made in response, one of them being the development of new food products known as novel alternative proteins, including cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, algae- and insect-based foods. The future of these alternative proteins to a large extent depends on consumer acceptance from young people. This study investigates the attitudes of Australia's adult Generation Z (Gen Z), born between 1995 and 2003, regarding climate change and more sustainable food choices. Gen Z is a diverse, important and trendsetting group known for organising globally on causes related to climate, social justice and health. The study of Australia's Gen Z is based on a 2021 cross-national survey in the main Australian cities. It shows that, although 86% of the participants perceive climate change as anthropogenic, only 38% believe that livestock-based foods are contributing significantly to global warming and environmental deterioration. The paper discusses the implications for Gen Z and novel alternative proteins given that the majority of Australia's young people has low awareness of the environmental impacts of food systems and dietary choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material has published a range of resources that promote environmentally aware collection care and management practices including climate-specific Environmental Guidelines, the Sustainable Collections wiki and the Climate Adaptation resource. The Climate Adaptation resource provides access to 180 maps illustrating potential future climate scenarios for Australia in 2030 and 2090, using the two Representative Concentration Pathways RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. These maps were produced as part of research undertaken in 2019–2020 by Pagliarino and Meredith and supplement those published in volume 41 (issue 1) of the AICCM Bulletin. The release of updated climate change projections in the Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis – precipitated a review of the Climate Adaptation resource to confirm the continued veracity of the maps. This paper provides the results of that assessment, which confirmed the resource's ongoing accuracy and currency. In addition, the paper includes discussion of the new IPCC future climate scenarios of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, which supersede RCP, and a summary of the state of the climate in Australia with warming, humidity, fire, weather and sea level rise investigated in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antarctica is a crucial regulator of the world's climate, and as environmental security permeates global security, using Antarctic science to better understand climate is becoming increasingly pressing. Although the Australian Government has recognised that climate change poses 'a current and existential national security' threat and has acknowledged Antarctica's importance regarding the earth's global climate system, the focus of Australia's intelligence community pertaining to Antarctica currently remains restricted to upholding the military-security and diplomatic goals of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). This current focus aims to hedge against the possibility of conflict on, or over, the frozen continent via 'working the ATS', however, this paper argues that Antarctic climate science holds a greater capacity to deliver security outcomes for Australia. Antarctic climate science offers opportunities regarding intelligence for Antarctica, that is, securing Australia's Antarctic interests, as well as regarding intelligence from Antarctica; by enhancing natural disaster preparedness, bolstering broader strategic planning, as well as furthering diplomacy and the legitimisation of Australia's leadership on, and over, the frozen continent. It is recommended that the Commonwealth Government establish a climate intelligence working group to ensure the utility of climate science to security and intelligence is realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildfires affect 40% of the earth's terrestrial biome, but much of our knowledge of wildfire activity is limited to the satellite era. Improved understanding of past fires is necessary to better forecast how fire regimes might change with future climate change, to understand ecosystem resilience to fire, and to improve data-model comparisons. Environmental proxy archives can extend our knowledge of past fire activity. Speleothems, naturally occurring cave formations, are widely used in paleoenvironmental research as they are absolutely dateable, occur on every ice-free continent, and include multiple proxies. Recently, speleothems have been shown to record past fire events (Argiriadis et al., 2019, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.9b00767; McDonough et al., 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2022.03.020; Homann et al., 2022, https://doi. org/10.1038/s41467-022-34950-x). Here we present a review of this emerging application in speleothem paleoenvironmental science. We give a concise overview of fire regimes and common paleofire proxies, describe past attempts to use stalagmites to investigate paleofire, and describe the physical basis through which speleothems can record past fires. We then describe the ideal speleothem sample for paleofire research and offer a summary of applicable laboratory and statistical methods. Finally, we present four case studies from southwest Australia which: (a) explore the geochemistry of ash leachates, (b) detail how sulfate isotopes may be a proxy for post fire ecological recovery, (c) demonstrate how a catastrophic paleofire was linked to changes in climate and land management, and (d) investigate whether deep caves can record past fire events. We conclude the paper by outlining future research directions for paleofire applications. Wildfires are a global hazard, and are likely to become larger, more common, and more intense with climate change. Most of our knowledge about wildfires comes from satellite data, which are not long enough to fully understand past fire behavior. We can use paleoenvironmental data to learn more. Natural cave decorations (speleothems) have recently been found to include information about fire events. As they grow, stalagmite chemistry changes according to the climate and environment, and recent research has shown that elements from wildfire ash can become incorporated into the speleothem archive. Here we review recent advances of this new application in paleofire research. We detail the development of this emerging field, starting with cave dripwater monitoring results, we then give an overview of relevant laboratory and statistical methods, and provide four case studies. The case studies are an investigation of ash geochemistry, an analysis of post-fire changes in sulfate, a study of how intense fires are linked to climate, and an exploration of whether deep cave stalagmites may also record past fires. Longer records of fire activity will help to improve models for forecasting how fire regimes might change with climate change and how ecosystems might respond to those changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for climate policy engagement that is focused on building the social conditions conducive to support for climate policy. Despite the ongoing scientific and social cases being made for climate action, social divisions remain in some contexts such as Australia and the United States. The success of climate policies depend in part on the general social support base for that solution, with public polarisation acting as a barrier. Dominant communication models have tended to rely on one-way strategically focused communication to exert influence with the aim of shifting one's attitudes. However, there is a need to extend such approaches to go beyond strategic messaging and instead establish the social conditions necessary for policy support. Drawing on diverse literature and framing theory, a new engagement model for climate policy is proposed which centres around a goal of relationship-building between actors to facilitate productive discussion on climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factors affecting fertilizer decisions made by grain growers are changing in the context of changing climatic conditions and growing volatility in global fertilizer and grain markets. To ensure sustainable development of grain industries in light of this uncertainty, research, development, extension, and adoption activities associated with growers' fertilizer decisions need to be focused on factors to which they are most sensitive. The aim of this paper is to understand the factors that have the greatest influence on grain producer's fertilizer strategies, how these factors have changed over recent years, and what is the relative importance of agronomic, socioeconomic, and logistical factors affecting these strategies. A telephone survey of 425 grain-growing businesses in Western Australia was conducted, and survey results were analyzed statistically. We show for the first time that grain growers' fertilizer decisions are most sensitive to agronomic factors (especially the amount and distribution of rainfall). Logistic factors (such as difficulties fertilizing increasing areas in short periods of time) are growing in influence as farm size, cropping areas, and the number of fertilizer applications within seasons increase. Fertilizer decisions have become less sensitive to socioeconomic factors over the last 10 to 15 years. To ensure sustainable development of grain production, research through to adoption activities should focus on agronomic issues (such as seasonal forecasting) and logistic issues (such as improving planning, organizational, and technical capacity for developing and implementing fertilizer strategies). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: We synthesise the findings from 10 years of ecological restoration in the Midlands of Tasmania, Australia, captured in the series of 14 papers in this special issue of Ecological Management and Restoration. The papers illustrate how expertise from disciplines as diverse as law, economics, social sciences, the arts, education, zoology, botany, genetics, climate modelling, agriculture, spatial sciences and fire ecology are necessary to address the complex social, ecological and financial questions that underpin restoration ecology. We highlight the complexity of the task, the multi‐disciplinary and collaborative approach needed, the importance of science to inform restoration practice and the problem of achieving functional connectivity. We also outline steps that need to be taken in the next 10 years. Together, the outcomes and recommendations from these studies provide a template for restoration in similar highly cleared and degraded agricultural landscapes affected by climate change in Australia and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate activists and environmental communicators stress that addressing the climate crisis requires both global and local advocacy for transformational change-making. While journalists in small, rural communities are known to actively advocate on issues for the common good, there has been little investigation of local media advocacy on climate change in rural Australia: a region at the forefront of global heating. This paper analyses the accounts of local journalists of their media coverage of the School Strikes 4 Climate in rural and regional Australia, as an empirical entry point for a conceptual discussion of local media advocacy in reporting climate change. We find that normative ideas about journalism coupled with polarised community views on climate change hindered these journalists from taking an advocacy stance. We explore and critique the tacit 'quiet advocacy' practices used by these journalists reporting on climate in rural and regional Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being the most tangibly impacted by the first-order effects of a warming climate, much of Australia's agricultural regions have remained relatively conservative in their views on climate change and the need for adaptation. This paper aims to understand how the experience of an extreme climate event like the 2017–2020 drought might shift opinions and values on these issues within agricultural communities. Through in-depth interviews with 20 graziers across Northwest NSW during the worst days of the drought, we found that various psychological lock-ins, historical memories of resilience, and local cultural values appeared to be undermining the perception of their vulnerability, while enhancing perceptions of their ability to endure. Such discursive constructions appear to explain why a jarring climatic event like the 2017–2020 drought was failing to produce a noticeable shift in their views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Our objective was to establish a relationship between long-term variation in the climatic environment, tree canopy decline and observed effects on the population dynamics of avifauna in the Dryandra Woodlands in southwestern Australia. These geographically isolated remnant woodlands are rich in endemic species and sustain a diverse range of ecological communities, but are threatened by habitat degradation and a decline in rainfall. Methods: We used annual rainfall data, averaged from a series of weather stations within 100 km of the Dryandra Woodlands and a time series analysis to investigate long-term changes in annual rainfall. Satellite spectral observations of eight study sites at Dryandra was used to measure changes in Projected Foliage Cover (PFC) of old growth Eucalyptus wandoo at all sites. Our mist-net trapping study across three years and all eight sites, targeted two focal species; the rufous treecreeper (Climacteris rufa) and yellow-plumed honeyeater (Ptilotula ornata). We investigated the relationship between the captures of each species and variation in PFC, between sites and across years. Also in a separate demographic study, capture-mark-recapture data was used to estimate the apparent survival rate of each species, following the robust design for open and closed populations. Key results: We demonstrate a long-term and continuing decline in average annual rainfall that is accelerating. We found the rainfall trend is concomitant with a long-term decline in PFC of E. wandoo and that the previous year's annual rainfall is a predictor of average PFC across all sites. Additionally, we discovered that the PFC at each site, in each year, is a predictor of the number of yellow-plumed honeyeaters which prefer feeding on canopy insects and not a predictor of the predominantly ground-foraging rufous treecreeper. We also found a substantial difference in the apparent survival rates between the two species, with the apparent survival of yellow-plumed honeyeaters being approximately half that of rufous treecreepers. This difference was partially attributed to the likely movement outside of the study area due to decreasing habitat quality. Conclusions and implications: Overall, our results do suggest that some impacts of long-term rainfall trends can be traced to particular species through PFC variation, but the response between species to habitat change will differ and depend on species-specific habitat requirements. As increasing greenhouse emissions are associated with declining rainfall in southwestern Australia, this study shows if rainfall decline and habitat degradation continue, it will have catastrophic consequences for woodland ecosystems. In this paper, we explorehow declining rainfall in southwestern Australia is impacting old growtheucalypts and resident avifauna of the Dryandra woodlands. Using long term dataon rainfall and satellite imagery of Eucalyptuswandoo canopy cover, results show a continuing declining trend inaverage rainfall that is accelerating. Also, we found that rainfall is a predictor oftree foliage cover, which is also declining over time. Our analysis of bird mist-net trapping data and tree canopy data indicate that foliagecover is a predictor of the number of yellow-plumed honeyeaters captured, butnot a predictor of rufous treecreepers. The apparent survival rate of the yellow-plumedhoneyeater was half that of the rufous treecreeper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a blueprint to address urgent global challenges, with a clear role for social workers. This paper explores a Sustainable Development Goal's focused student placement at the Australian Association of Social Workers, with RMIT University. Students reviewed the AASW's policy actions and their contribution to the SDGs, including recommendations for future work. The review identified advocacy in key areas, and the need for action on several issues, including climate action. Students learned about social work policy, practice, and sustainability. The placement itself provides a model for other organisations to align their actions to the SDGs. IMPLICATIONS There is a need for greater social work engagement with the United Nations' SDGs to address urgent social and environmental challenges. Field education placements can provide an important opportunity for students to learn about sustainability, social work policy practice, and the SDGs. The placement model proposed in the article is suitable for any organisation that seeks to review their actions and better align their work to the SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour migration is considered an important pathway for improving economic development in countries of origin. In recent years, labour migration, through the 'migration as adaptation' discourse, has been further positioned as a response to changing environmental conditions in places of high climate risk, such as the Pacific Islands region. However, limited empirical work examines whether and how labour mobility schemes enhance both development outcomes and climate change adaptation. This paper considers how temporary and circular labour migrants from Solomon Islands, who are participants in Australia's Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP), are investing in their lives, households and villages in their country of origin in ways that contribute to development and climate change adaptation. Based on in-depth qualitative research with twelve Solomon Islander SWP participants working on citrus farms in the Mildura region, Australia, we find that investments (via funding, resources and skills) made by labour migrants contribute to development and in-situ climate change adaptation, enabling aspirations for a resilient futures in their community of origin. However, we argue climate change considerations should be formally integrated and mainstreamed into the SWP to fully enable possibilities for transformative climate change adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Nationwide streamflow projections for Australia informed by CMIP5 and CMIP6. • Vast majority of CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs project less winter rainfall across Australia. • Lower winter rainfall translates to a significant reduction in annual runoff. • Modelled median projection of runoff shows a 50% reduction in far southwest Australia. • Modelled median projection of runoff shows a 20% reduction in far southeast Australia. Projections of streamflow under future climate are essential for developing adaptation strategies in the water and related sectors. This paper presents nationwide streamflow projections for Australia informed by climate change signals in CMIP6 GCMs and compares the projections with those from CMIP5 GCMs. The modelled future runoff projections driven by CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs are relatively similar for far southern Australia. The median projection is a 50% reduction in mean annual runoff in far southwest Australia and 20% reduction in far southeast Australia by 2046–2075 relative to 1976–2015 under the high SSP5-8.5/RCP8.5 global warming scenario. The vast majority of CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs project less winter rainfall across Australia. As most of the runoff in far southern Australia occurs in winter and spring, the lower winter rainfall translates to a significant reduction in annual runoff. It is therefore prudent to plan and manage for a reduction in future water resources, particularly in the densely populated and important agricultural regions in southeast Australia. There is less agreement between GCMs in the summer rainfall projection, with the CMIP6 GCMs generally projecting a wetter future (or smaller decrease in rainfall) than the CMIP5 GCMs. The modelled median projection for mean annual runoff is a 10% reduction in the south-east coast, 5% reduction in the north-east coast and little change in northern Australia. More GCMs project an increase rather than a decrease in the interannual variability of rainfall, and this would further amplify multi-year hydrological droughts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is now clearly recognised as a source of financial risk for private sector actors. In Anglo-American jurisdictions like Australia, corporate law and prudential regulatory frameworks contain obligations to identify, disclose and manage material financial risks that can be applied to climate-related risks. These legal frameworks have served as a foundation for the emergence of a range of private regulatory initiatives which seek to develop and apply best practice standards for climate risk disclosure and management, and which involve a range of different actors in driving the uptake of, and seeking to enforce, these standards. This paper explores the body of emerging private climate risk regulation, focusing particularly on the central organising theme of these initiatives: aligning private climate risk management to the climate mitigation goals of the international Paris Agreement. It outlines the way in which Paris-alignment and net-zero emissions are emerging as new norms guiding private sector approaches to climate change and explores how this interacts with and builds on essentially climateneutral, risk-based corporate law and prudential regulatory frameworks. While there is considerable potential in Australia for Paris-aligned private risk management to contribute meaningfully to achieving international climate mitigation goals, there are also well-founded concerns about the effectiveness of these private measures that require further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eka Nari Sanghathan (ENS), an Indigenous single women farmer's collective in Odisha, India and Norco Dairy in regional NSW, Australia are cooperatives undertaking collective action to 'survive well', securing agrarian livelihoods in the face of climate change. Striking differences in affluence and poverty separate these place‐based cooperatives while other things connect them: an Earth unsettled by climate change and extractivist/capitalist interventions. Both cooperatives transform place in practice by engaging similar survival strategies and non‐exploitative forms of cooperation. In this paper we seek to articulate the transformative nature of these places and practices in a way that goes beyond easy binaries of local/global, while enabling recognition of different affiliations between lands, related climate crisis and sustainable and shared surviving mechanisms. We develop a 'two‐thirds' perspective building upon Bruno Latour's third attractor, the Terrestrial, together with another third, Chakrabarti, Dhar and Cullenberg's idea of the World of the Third (WOT). Their interventions open our thinking to the ecological particularities, uncertainties, and postcapitalist possibilities of surviving well in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perennial pastures are the dominant feedbase in many regions of the world, and offer several advantages when compared with an annual pasture system. In Western Australia (WA) there has been a concerted effort over seven decades to develop new perennial pasture options and expand the adoption of suitable species. The agricultural region of WA (i.e. south-western Australia) is characterised by a Mediterranean climate where the 5–7 month summer drought has proved a considerable challenge with only a small number of the many promising species being adopted commercially. Research, development, and extension have covered a wide range of herbaceous perennial legumes, leguminous and native shrubs, herbs, and temperate and warm season grasses. This paper reviews the literature to determine whether a perennial pasture must satisfy the following criteria to be successful and widely adopted in south-western Australia: (i) sourced from a similar Mediterranean environment and adapted to the target soils; (ii) have a relative advantage over the annual-based system it replaces; (iii) a robust management package; and (iv) a viable seed supply. The findings of this review highlight that perennial pastures must indeed satisfy multiple criteria to be commercially successful. Notably, the requirement for the source of the germplasm to have a good match between climate and soils is less clear because some of the commercially successful species come from diverse environments. We conclude with some key learnings for future perennial pasture development as climate change intensifies the research challenge and the drive for producers to adapt. In Western Australia, there has been a concerted effort to develop new perennial pasture options. Research, development, and extension have covered a range of herbaceous perennial legumes, leguminous and native shrubs, herbs and temperate and warm season grasses. Overall, this search has proved to be a considerable challenge in a Mediterranean environment with many promising species having little or no commercial impact, and only a small number of species have had widespread commercial adoption. This review explores the key requirements for perennial species to become more than a niche pasture in a Mediterranean climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From September 2019 to February 2020 fires destroyed dwellings, towns and killed farm animals and wildlife in much of eastern Australia. While the threat and experiences of fire differed, smoke became a quotidian experience for millions of people not in direct danger from flames. The disjuncture between the Australian bushfire summer existing within much longer histories of air, respiration and smoke in cities and the experiences of smoke being new to many people highlights important issues relating to nomenclature, boundaries and urban imaginaries. Developing a more-than-urban political ecology of smoke, this paper concludes that understanding smoke as part of atmospheres within which humans live and breathe is necessary to support the integrated management of land, water, air and the living entities in and beyond a particular area or country. A more-than-urban political ecology of smoke will assist people to view themselves and their welfare as being connected with what happens on spaces that are physically distant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifth-generation district heating and cooling (5GDHC) systems have the potential to provide simultaneous heating and cooling, allowing for energy exchange between users with different needs. However, their viability in mild climates with a higher share of cooling demand remains unclear. In this paper, we propose a framework for assessing the engineering, economic and environmental performance of a 5GDHC system compared to a state-of-the-art business-as-usual solution and demonstrate it through a practical case study for a university campus in Melbourne, Australia. When accessible heat sources and sinks are available, the 5GDHC system provides a cost-effective solution, with annual cost savings between 9 and 29 % and GHG emissions reduction between 25 and 58 % compared to an already advanced business-as-usual system. Additionally, by using peak off-peak tariffs and an hourly emission factor for the electricity consumed, we demonstrate the 5GDHC operational flexibility in pursuing different objectives, such as minimising cost or emissions, respectively. The results suggest that 5GDHC systems are an economically and environmentally viable solution in milder climates, and a successful implementation of 5GDHC in Australia can create new market opportunities and pave the way for its adoption in other countries with similar climatic conditions and no established history of district heating systems. • 5GDHC systems are analysed in a new context with a milder climate. • A multi-dimensional assessment framework is proposed. • The framework is demonstrated through a practical case study in Melbourne, Australia. • Flexibility is assessed through varying electricity tariffs and emission factors. • The strong performance of the 5GDHC system offers insights into similar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although planning and policy instruments are important for climate change adaptation, the implementation of these measures is critical for success. This paper studies different climate change adaptation strategies by analysing the measures adopted by stakeholders in charge of government policy development and implementation to minimise the impacts of climate change in the northern tropical region of Queensland, Australia. Local government organisations are responsible for taking a leading role in climate change adaptation. State and commonwealth government agencies are primarily responsible for developing climate transition policies and guidelines, as well as providing limited financial aid to help support the local government. Interviews were conducted with local government practitioners identified from different local government authorities in the study region. Although all the government bodies made some progress in developing better climate change adaptation policies, the interview participants identified that a lot more needs to be done, especially in implementation, including devising and the application of relevant action plans, economic assessments, stakeholder participations and engagement. From a local government practitioners' viewpoint, both the water sector and local economy will face the highest immediate impacts if climate change adaptation actions are not adequately implemented at local government level in the study region. There are currently no notable legal bindings to address climate change risks in the region. In addition, financial liability assessments due to climate risks and cost-share mechanisms among different levels of stakeholders and government authorities to face and prepare for climate change impacts hardly exist. Although the interview respondents recognise their high importance. As there are uncertainties in the achievements of climate change adaptation plans, from a local government practitioners' standpoint, the local authorities should take appropriate actions to integrate adaptation and mitigation works to face and prepare for climate risks rather than focusing only on adaptation. The respondents informed that some work has been done to identify flood prone areas and a few policy documents exist that accommodate sea level rise in planning practice, but these are done in fragments with no holistic implementation, monitoring or evaluation plans put in place. • Climate change adaptation actions are urgently needed. • The priorities and perceptions of government professionals are key to success. • Stakeholders needs to be engaged to formulate adaptation strategies. • Holistic implementation, monitoring or evaluation plans are important for success. • Climate change adaptation and mitigation measures are suggested to be integrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Quantile-quantile rainfall mapping methods are extended to improve streamflow simulations. • Extensions correct rainfall bias at multiple time scales and model rainfall autocorrelation. • Methods reduce bias in rainfall sequencing metrics for downscaled GCM simulations. • Methods reduce bias in streamflow simulations forced by downscaled GCM simulations. Global circulation models (GCMs) provide important insights into future climate change. Bias-correction of downscaled GCM output is integral to any hydrological investigations of climate change due to discrepancies between the statistics of downscaled GCM simulations and observations. Many bias-correction techniques have been developed to support hydrological applications. However, there have been few comparisons of the sensitivity of hydrological simulations to different bias-correction assumptions. This paper investigates the importance of two common assumptions: (i) simultaneously correcting bias at multiple time scales, and (ii) explicitly handling rainfall autocorrelation; in quantile mapping of downscaled GCM rainfall data for hydrological simulation. Four quantile mapping methods are applied to correct bias in dynamically downscaled reanalysis and historical GCM simulations of rainfall for 11 catchments in south-eastern Australia and the performance of bias-corrected rainfall and streamflow simulations is evaluated. All quantile mapping methods investigated can effectively eliminate bias in monthly and annual rainfall totals. Quantile mapping methods that consider differences in the temporal dependence (autocorrelation) structure of downscaled GCM and observed rainfall are most effective in reducing bias in rainfall sequencing statistics, such as probability of consecutive wet or dry days. Streamflow simulations of mean and high streamflow percentiles are underestimated when generated using rainfall that is corrected using quantile mapping methods that do not consider differences in the temporal dependence structure of downscaled GCM and observed rainfall. Future hydrological investigations of climate change should therefore adopt methods that explicitly consider the temporal dependence structures of downscaled GCM and observed rainfall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We modify a method to assess yield of carryover reservoir with environmental flow. • The method can be applied at large scales, under historic and future climates. • We quantify yield declines due to climate change and environmental flow provision. Protecting freshwater systems to ensure sustainability requires diagnosing threats over a broad range of scales, from local to global. There is growing acceptance that environmental flows must be protected to sustain river channels and floodplain ecosystems downstream of reservoirs. Meeting environmental water requirements has proven difficult because they reduce water yield available for human use – a particular challenge in regions already experiencing declining water availability with climate change. A further challenge is the difficulty of assessing the impact of environmental water requirements on water availability for other purposes. This paper provides a modification of the Gould-Dincer method to assess the yield of carry-over reservoirs subject to environmental water requirements. The method characterizes reservoir inflows using readily available flow characteristics (annual mean and C v). We develop and test the method using ten examples with well-understood environmental water requirements and a range of annual flow C v s. We then demonstrate this method at continental scale, to investigate the impact on yield of providing high-reliability supply including environmental water requirements, under a changing climate. According to our results, considering climate change and environmental flow provision simultaneously, the decline in water yield is projected to be about 27% and 18% respectively for Australia and US (based on hypothetical reservoirs capacity of one times mean annual inflow). Adapting environmental flow demands to future hydrological conditions results in a 2% and 3% increase in Australia and US-wide yield for human use respectively. While further testing is needed, the method provides a simple and rapid way to estimate the impact of providing environmental flow on yield, applicable at global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rapidly warming planet provides a significant challenge to the design, delivery, and maintenance of habitable housing across Australia. Information on the adequacy of current measures for cooling Indigenous houses in regional and remote communities in relation to climate change and rising energy consumption costs is lacking. Such information is needed to better protect low socio-economic status householders, people with pre-existing health conditions, and people living in climatically exposed regions. This article models the thermal performance of both existing and 'improved' (built to current national construction code standards) housing stock in relation to various occupancy density, cooling system, and ventilation practice scenarios. This modelling was undertaken for housing in Australia's tropical, arid, and hot/mild climate zones, matching the sites where most discrete Indigenous communities are located. Results show that retrofitting existing housing stock and even building new stock to meet recommended standards are not adequate measures for current or future climate changes. This paper challenges current knowledge, policy, and practices regarding Indigenous housing, demonstrating that significant reform is necessary to maintain habitable conditions and improve energy resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 369 recovered a stratigraphically complete, Santonian-aged, pelagic sedimentary sequence at Site U1513 on the Naturaliste Plateau (33°47.6084′S, 112°29.1338′E) at ~2800 m water depth. The site was located at ~60°S paleolatitude in Cretaceous times. A total of 59 samples studied from Holes 1513A and 1513B yielded 140 calcareous and nine agglutinated benthic foraminiferal taxa. Gavelinellids (Notoplanulina, Gavelinella, Anomalinoides) and Gyroidinoides spp., are the most abundant taxa overall and also dominate most samples. We also report 382 foraminiferal stable isotopic measurements and infer cooling [of ~5 °C in surface waters and 2 °C at the seafloor] based on changes in δ18O values for benthic and planktonic taxa through the Santonian at Site U1513. Inferred cooling was accompanied by changes in planktonic and benthic foraminiferal assemblages. At Site U1513, benthic foraminiferal taxonomic richness declines by 15 species (from 20– 25 to 5–10 taxa) towards the upper Santonian. Within this interval, epifaunal, oxic foraminifera diminish in absolute and relative abundance, and there is a parallel relative increase in opportunistic taxa and infaunal foraminifera. Changes in benthic foraminiferal communities indicate a shift from oligotrophic to eutrophic conditions in the bottom water despite the general cooling trend. This paper explores the causes and effects of the paleoenvironmental changes in the bottom waters. • surface and bottom waters were differently affected by the Santonian cooling. • Ecologic groups within benthic and planktonic foraminifera show different reactions to pronounced cooling. • surface dwelling planktonic foraminifera record cooling by ~5 °C. • the seafloor cooled by ~2.5 °C during the onset of the Late Cretaceous cooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Wildfires are becoming more severe and frequent and their effects increasingly expose water resources to stress. • Climate, wildfire, streamflow records (1975 to 2018), topography, and landcover data from 92 catchments were combined to quantify the contribution of wildfire to streamflow variability across Australian temperate forests. • On average wildfire regimes relatively results in 8.8% increases in streamflow across Australian temperate forests. • Wildfire effects on regional streamflow varied spatially depending on hydroclimate factors, particularly precipitation. As wildfires become more frequent and severe, there are concerns regarding their impacts on water yield from forested catchments. While there are many studies in Australia about the effects of individual wildfires on streamflow at fine scales (<1 km2) in specific geographic settings, the effects of wildfire regimes on streamflow at broad spatial scales across temperate forests in Australia are not well understood. In this paper, we combined climate, wildfire, streamflow records (1975 to 2018), topographic, and landcover data from 92 catchments (74 – 4740 km2) in the Australian temperate zone to quantify the contribution of wildfire regimes over time to streamflow variability in different hydroclimatic settings (humid, dry sub-humid, and semi-arid) and geographic regions (Southeast Australia (SEA), Southwest Western Australia (SWWA), and Tasmania (TAS)). Wildfire regimes were represented by two metrics: the burnt area to drainage area (BDA) ratio for wildfire events in each year and a spatially averaged metric of Time Since Fire (TSF), which is a spatial average of time since the last wildfire in the catchment. By comparing prefire and postfire runoff ratios our study found that on average there was a short-term increase in runoff ratio (∼3% in year 1 and ∼6% in year 2 post-fire) after wildfires with BDA > 25%. No influence of fire was found in the long-term (15–20 years after the wildfire) runoff ratio. We found that wildfire regime, measured by TSF, explained ∼8.8% of the variation in annual streamflow across the Australian temperate zone, and that with decreasing TSF (i.e., increased wildfire impact), the average streamflow increased. Streamflow variation explained by wildfire regimes varied with hydroclimate. The explained variance of streamflow by wildfire regimes in semi-arid catchments (23%) and dry sub-humid catchments (13%) were higher than humid catchments (5%). Our results provide a broad-scale understanding of how wildfire regimes influence streamflow variability at broad temporal and spatial scales, and provided important context and baseline information for determining the implications of changes in climate and fire regimes for regional water availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities must transform in order to address the challenge of climate change and to achieve societal ambitions such as the sustainable development goals. However, a key impediment to achieving transformation is underdeveloped understandings of how key actors and sectors within the built environment work together to achieve goals. This paper addresses these gaps by developing and visually presenting a process map to describe: the key processes involved in producing the built environment across its life stages; key sectors of the built environment, their key actors, and the activities coordinated between them. The process map was peer reviewed by an expert reference group of built environment professionals active in Australia and the UK. The motivation for developing this process map is to facilitate future research to identify and expedite opportunities for coordinated action to address significant societal challenges such as climate change action, and the sustainable development goals – which require transformative action in cities. • Cities must transform to address climate change • We develop a process map to describe the production of the built environment • Process map describes fundamental activities for producing the built environment • Process map spans built environment life stages; identifying activities and interactions of key sectors and actors • Can be applied to inform transformative action targeted at challenges such as climate change [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen is fast becoming a new international "super fuel" to accelerate global climate change ambitions. This paper has two inter-weaving themes. Contextually, it focuses on the potential impact of the EU's new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on fossil fuel-generated as opposed to green hydrogen imports. The CBAM, as a transnational carbon adjustment mechanism, has the potential to impact international trade in energy. It seeks both a level playing field between imports and EU internal markets (subject to ambitious EU climate change policies), and to encourage emissions reduction laggards through its "carbon diplomacy". Countries without a price on carbon will be charged for embodied carbon in their supply chains when they export to the EU. Empirically, we focus on two hydrogen export/import case studies: Australia as a non-EU state with ambitions to export hydrogen, and Germany as an EU Member State reliant on energy imports. Energy security is central to energy trade debates but needs to be conceptualized beyond supply and demand economics to include geopolitics, just transitions and the impacts of border carbon taxes and EU carbon diplomacy. Accordingly, we apply and further develop a seven-dimension energy security-justice framework to the examples of brown, blue and green hydrogen export/import hydrogen operations, with varying carbon-intensity supply chains, in Australia and Germany. Applying the framework, we identify potential impact—risks and opportunities—associated with identified brown, blue and green hydrogen export/import projects in the two countries. This research contributes to the emerging fields of international hydrogen trade, supply chains, and international carbon diplomacy and develops a potentially useful seven-dimension energy security-justice framework for energy researchers and policy analysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to evaluate the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of importing electrical power into Singapore, generated from a large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Australia, through a long-distance subsea high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable. A cost optimization model was developed to estimate the capacities of the system components. A comprehensive life cycle assessment model was built to estimate emissions of manufacturing and use of these components. Our evaluation shows that, for covering one fifth of Singapore's electrical energy needs, a system with an installed capacity of 13 G W P V , 17 GWh battery storage and 3.2 G W subsea cable is required. The life cycle GHG emissions of such a system are estimated to be 110 g CO 2 eq/ kWh , with the majority coming from the manufacturing of solar PV panels. Cable manufacturing does not contribute largely toward GHG emissions. By varying full-load hours and cable lengths, it was assessed that sites closer to Singapore might provide the same energy at same/lower carbon footprint and reduced cost, despite the lower insolation as compared to Australia. However, these sites could cause greater emissions from land use changes than the deserts of Australia, offsetting the advantages of a shorter HVDC cable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to significant weather variabilities of rainfalls, potential water savings through rainwater tanks are expected to vary significantly. Moreover, within some large cities, significant spatial variations are reported. With the emerging impacts of climate change, existing weather and spatial variabilities of potential water savings are also likely to be changed, which are unknown to the end-users. This paper presents the impacts of climate change on current weather and spatial variabilities of potential water savings for Adelaide, a large city in Australia. Future daily rainfall data was collected from a data portal provided by the Australian government derived through a statistical downscaling modelling. Projected daily rainfall data was fed to an earlier developed daily water balance model (eTank) to calculate water savings for three future periods; 2030–2050, 2055–2075 and 2080–2100. Three weathers (dry, average and wet) in each period were considered along with two climate change scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) and two tank sizes (5 kL and 10 kL). It is found that varying outcomes without any general trend are expected depending on the projection scenario, period and weather condition. Contrary to the general perception, it is found that in several cases, the potential water savings are expected to increase compared to the current climate. Most of those expected increases in water savings are attributed to the projection scenario of RCP 4.5, in the near future and in dry years. In the far-future and with the projection scenario of RCP 8.5, most of the potential water savings are expected to decrease compared to the current climate. Regarding changes in spatial variability of water savings, it is found that the spatial variability will decrease in the near future, but will increase towards the far future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mesoscale eddies drive variability in phytoplankton functional trait composition and primary productivity (PP) relative to adjacent waters. Offshore waters in southeast Australia are subject to substantial mesoscale eddies that form when the East Australian Current (EAC) travels poleward along the coast, forming distinctive habitats in the upper ocean. Eddies provide an important enrichment mechanism in the nitrogen-limited waters of the Tasman Sea, yet there is limited knowledge of PP within cold- and warm-core eddies in the region and how physico-chemical and biological factors affect phytoplankton communities in this variable environment. We addressed the scarcity of observations by quantifying net PP using 13C isotopic enrichment incubations of surface waters over 10 degrees of latitude, comparing phytoplankton species composition in five different environments: a coastal shelf station, an oceanic cold and warm-core eddy, and a coastal dipole. Cold-core (cyclonic) eddies were significantly more productive than their warm-core (anticyclonic) counterparts (∼35 versus 0 mg C m−3 d−1), with centric diatoms the most prominent phytoplankton group, with a relatively high centric:pennate ratio. The diffuse attenuation coefficient, K d (PAR), and silicate were the best overall predictors of phytoplankton composition, explaining 88% of variation based on pigment analysis and size fractionation. Variance in net PP did not correlate significantly with physico-chemical parameters frequently used in PP models (temperature, K d [PAR], Chl a), yet inclusion of size-fractionated Chl a generated substantial improvement in our statistical model (from 36 to 77%). We show that cold-core eddies play a key role in regulating PP in eastern Australian waters and highlight a need for eddy-resolving models to incorporate descriptors of phytoplankton size structure to improve the accuracy of PP forecasts in eddy intensive regions. • Mesoscale eddies modulate primary productivity dynamics along the East Australian coast. • Knowledge of phytoplankton size structure improves prediction of primary productivity. • Phytoplankton community structure can be predicted from light and silicate levels. • Centric diatoms are the most prominent phytoplankton group in East Australian cyclonic eddies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]