Support climate adaptation programs and partnerships, including with Aboriginal people and communities, farmers, local governments, businesses and other sectors.

WA currently lacks comprehensive, effective adaptation planning. Clean State notes Victoria and the ACT have exemplary Adaptation strategies. The ACT’s Adaptation strategy, is based on predicted climate hazards including floods, drought, heatwaves and bushfires, and includes a suite of 27 actions to increase resilience and reduce risks in ACT’s community.

Clean State acknowledges climate change impacts and risks are inequitably distributed. First Nations communities, particularly in regional and remote areas and the tropics are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Vulnerable groups, including lower-income communities and the elderly are hit first and hardest by climate change. They’re likely to be in inefficient homes, more susceptible to heatwaves, and have fewer resources and capabilities to adapt. Failing to halt climate change and failing to invest in vulnerable populations first will cause greater poverty and inequality in the future.

Clean State advocates for the inclusion of community based adaptation elements into WA’s climate adaption strategy, which requires meaningful consultation with, and support for, communities to determine and develop local climate adaption and resilience planning.

WA’s climate policy must include:

1. Adaptation plans for Western Australia that are prepared at least every five years and embed consideration of climate change across all levels of government decision making
2. Funding and support for adaptation programs and genuine partnerships with First Nations people and communities, and investment into essential infrastructure, facilities and programs in First Nations communities.
3. State-wide climate risk assessment and increased emergency services funding
4. Programs which ensure a just transition, invest in low income and vulnerable households first, and directly target and assist vulnerable groups to adapt to WA’s changing climate, including social housing and rental housing retrofits for comfort, clean energy and energy efficiency.