Reducing climate disaster risk: insights from communities, government and industry
As Australians are experiencing, climate change is exacerbating disaster risk, including unprecedented (yet fully predicted) bushfires and floods in the past few years. Simply put, climate change is supercharging extreme weather, and that, in turn, creates major risks for additional disasters. Given the reality of accelerating climate change, what can be done here in Australia to contribute to disaster risk reduction?
Ahead of the UN’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, hear from a panel of experts as they discuss what’s already happening and where we’re headed in terms of disasters. This talk will explore responses across sectors and society including government planning and funding, the role of the insurance industry in risk reduction to avoid post-disaster costs, and community action in the face of ongoing disasters.
The panel will raise the difficult question of what Australians are prepared to tolerate and accept in terms of risk – and what kinds of action is necessary to avoid harms to the public good.
This event was held online on Wednesday 12 October 2022.
Listen to the podcast
Speakers
Rosemary Lyster is the Co-Leader of the Climate Disaster and Adaptation Cluster at the Sydney Environment Institute. She is a Professor of Climate and Environmental Law in the University of Sydney Law School and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. Rosemary’s special area of research expertise is Climate Justice and Disaster Law.
Claudia Migotto is the NSW Assistant Auditor-General at the Audit Office of New South Wales. Claudia has over 15 years' experience across Commonwealth and NSW government agencies in policy and program development, implementation and evaluation.
Claudia has also held leadership roles in agencies tasked with providing independent information to the community on the performance of governments – including the COAG Reform Council and the National Mental Health Commission. Her work in reporting on the performance of governments has touched on a diverse range of sectors, including health system performance, disability, mental health and drug and alcohol issues, gender equity, Indigenous communities and housing.
Claudia joined the Audit Office in February 2016 as a Principal Performance Analyst and commenced as Assistant Auditor-General, Performance Audit in August 2017.
Jean Renouf is the chair of Resilient Byron. He is also an academic at Southern Cross University, a retained firefighter with Fire and Rescue NSW, and a dad. Prior to this, Jean spent years implementing emergency relief projects in disaster zones and countries at war, including Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, Iraq, North Korea, etc. All of this informs his passion for climate change, community regeneration and resilience, and led him to found Resilient Byron. Resilient Byron is a charity founded in 2019 which aims to build the resilience and regenerative capacities of the Northern Rivers residents of NSW.
David Schlosberg is Director of the Sydney Environment Institute and Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of Sydney. His work focuses on environmental and climate justice, environmental movements, sustainability in everyday life, and climate adaptation/resilience planning and policy.
Anna Sturman is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Australian Government-funded Developing systems and capacities to protect animals in catastrophic fires project (2022-2024), working with partner organisation the Shoalhaven City Council. Anna’s research focus is bringing historical materialist critiques of nature and value, and the role of the state, to bear on contemporary climate change discussions, particularly with regards to agrarian and rural transformations. Drawing from Marxian political economy, economic geography and political ecology, Anna’s work is situated within an emerging network of scholars building an internationalist, ecosocialist perspective in the Pacific; concerned not only with the critical elaboration of existing capitalist natures but their transcendence.
Header image: bushfire in Tasmania, Australia by Matt Palmer via Unsplash.