Climate change is a social justice issue. It disproportionately impacts communities facing structural disadvantage and further entrenches inequalities in relation to health outcomes, housing, energy security, and water security. Yet the responsibility for adapting to climate change and reckoning with its impacts is too often left up to individuals. The Government’s adaptation efforts must centre justice, equity and human rights, and action to support climate adaptation should ensure that through Victoria’s adaptation action, poverty and disadvantage is addressed, not entrenched.
The Victorian Government must do more to strengthen and coordinate adaptation efforts and build a meaningful climate change adaptation policy agenda. The recommendations in our submission would go some way to achieving this: a focus on equity, support for place-based approaches, ambitious and meaningful adaptation actions with dedicated funding, explicit recognition of the role of the community sector, and transparent and ongoing monitoring and reporting.
