Learnings From the Co-Development of Priority Risks in Australia's First National Climate Risk Assessment

Abstract

Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment is built on the latest science as well as learnings from other countries’ national risk assessments. The goal of the risk assessment was to identify the priority risks of climate change to Australia as a nation. Due to timeline obligations, this process needed to be completed in 4 months, a considerably shorter timeframe than other national climate risk assessments. In this paper, the authors share learnings from the process of implementing the first pass of Australia's National Climate Risk Assessment, which brought together more than 240 stakeholders across eight systems to co-develop a set of national priority risks. These learnings are used to provide recommendations and advice for working at the national scale and within short timeframes. First, a rapid climate risk assessment can bring together a significant diversity and range of stakeholders to engage in a national process and provide a broad perspective of the priorities that should be pursued. Second, the design of the process can provide multiple opportunities to iterate through drafts of risks in rapid succession. Third, bringing stakeholders into discussion across systems can increase understanding of how risks are connected and how future work could be pursued across systems for more effective risk management and adaptation planning. Our learnings help inform how future climate risk assessments can embrace the complexity of systemic risks and highlight the importance of building stakeholder networks to support both the risk assessment process and the adaptation work that follows.