Illawarra focal point of new climate change study

The ‘Carbon Central’ Illawarra will be the pivotal focus of an Australian Government funded project that aims to identify and develop options for necessary cultural adaptations needed as a result of climate change.

A survey will be posted to about 11,000 households in the Illawarra from 6-10 July seeking to learn how residents will cope with the twin challenges of climate change and recession.

The survey is the first part of the major Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project being conducted by a team of researchers based at the University of Wollongong’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. The team comprises Associate Professor Chris Gibson, Dr Nick Gill, Professor Lesley Head and Associate Professor Gordon Waitt.

Climate change is now widely recognised as the pressing global issue of the next 50 years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Research team member Associate Professor Chris Gibson said there would be enormous cultural changes needed in light of climate change.

“We will need to transform human-environment relations in ways as fundamental as occurred during the fossil fuel expansion of the 20th century,” he said.

“There is a lot of talk about becoming more ‘green’. But ordinary households will bear a lot of the responsibility for making the practical changes needed. How easy will it be for households to adapt? Global financial crisis and recession will probably make it even more difficult.”

The specific aims of the ARC project are to undertake a baseline study of what households think about climate change, how they currently make ends meet, and what capacities they have to change consumption patterns to reduce carbon emissions.

“It’s really imperative that governments listen to households about how they are coping in these tough times and what changes ordinary people are capable of making to meet the sustainability challenge. The Illawarra is a microcosm capturing the issues afflicting Australia as a whole and a region that can act as an ‘experimental laboratory’ for identifying and developing options for the future,” Professor Gibson said.

He said it would be possible to ‘scale up’ from what is found from the research in the Illawarra over the next five years to the national picture while catalysing important practical changes in the region along the way.

“The empirical focus of the project – the Illawarra region – was in many ways ‘Carbon Central’. Port Kembla wields enormous material and symbolic power in Australia’s carbon economy. The region’s location on Australia’s urbanising southeast coastal crescent places it in a recognised IPCC ‘hotspot’ where projected environmental changes will interact with population change to exacerbate vulnerability,” Professor Gibson said.

As the area is bounded by the Illawarra escarpment, Professor Gibson said the Illawarra was vulnerable to storm surges and flooding which were predicted to be exacerbated by climate change.

He said the Illawarra was also particularly vulnerable to economic downturn and the lessons learned from listening to households in the Illawarra would be of national importance.

Last reviewed: 2 July, 2009