It has been quite a month for the climate disaster, resilience, and adaptation members of the Sydney Environment Institute. In mid-September, the Australian government released the country’s first National Climate Risk Assessment, accompanied by a National Adaptation Plan; in mid-October, more than a dozen SEI members and staff were in Christchurch, New Zealand, to attend and present at Adaptation Futures 2025, the flagship event of the United Nations World Adaptation Science Programme (WASP) and the leading conference on the topic. The SEI delegation at Adaptation Futures included researchers of all levels from across the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Science, and the Faculty of Medicine and Health (FMH).

How Australia, and the world, respond to increasing climate risks and impacts – the floods, heatwaves, fires, and coastal erosion we’re already experiencing – is one of the central ‘grand challenges’ of the 21^st century. At SEI, research into climate disasters, resilience, and adaptation is conversely a central and fast-growing multidisciplinary research theme, driving collaboration between members from all University of Sydney faculties and an ever-increasing network of partners in government and private sectors. Our work in this space forefronts vulnerability, as well as the expertise and knowledges held by communities already responding to climate risk.

At Adaptation Futures 2025, our researchers connected with many local practitioners and researchers driving adaptation worldwide and presented a broad range of ongoing work on justice in adaptation, community-based knowledges in response to disasters, and ways to conceptualise and measure both vulnerability and the social and social-ecological infrastructure necessary for resilient communities. Colleagues also presented on specific community-based resilience and adaptation cases, including resilience networks in the Northern Rivers, adaptation in coastal communities impacted by climate change and violent conflict, everyday adaptation to flooding in informal settlements in Fiji, and divergent views on water futures.

SEI member Justin See, who was at the conference, reflected on how “effective adaptation requires not just technical solutions, but meaningful engagement with local knowledge and lived experience. I was struck by how many scholars, organisations, and local communities are already taking action on climate change in diverse and innovative ways - yet much of this work has yet to be brought to the fore and recognized as legitimate and valuable adaptation action. It reinforced for me that no effort is too small, and that we need to do more to elevate and learn from the work already happening on the ground.”

This focus on the importance of local action was key. For Scott Webster, Postdoctoral Researcher with SEI, the clear lesson was that "climate adaptation must be local and context-specific. From the beginning, Adaptation Futures 2025 reinforced this crucial and timely message. Through the keynotes and various panel sessions, there was also constant recognition of how essential pluralistic knowledges are to this process of place-based adaptation - local and Indigenous knowledges as not just legitimate but also essential to work with. It was heartening to have this so present and visible throughout a conference of this scale.” 

We were particularly happy to be able to support PhD students and ECRs at the conference. Vosawale Lesuma, a PhD student in the School of Geosciences, reflects on her experience: “I am so grateful to have attended and for the support offered by SEI. I am also particularly proud and appreciative of the emphasis placed on amplifying Indigenous voices and perspectives in adaptation at the conference, especially those from the Pacific. It was a privilege too to learn from and connect with leading adaptation practitioners and researchers from around the world, as well as to share a few insights from my ongoing research on flood adaptation in Fiji’s capital and to get diverse feedback and perspectives on the topic.”

As Hannah Della Bosca explained, the conference “was an energising and grounding experience, offering a rare space to connect theory with practice across global adaptation communities. As a PhD student, it deepened my sense of purpose and belonging within this space, and allowed me to better understand the diverse approaches that communities, researchers, governments, and industries are taking to climate response and climate justice.”

For PhD student Walter Galdames Opazo, the conference offered the opportunity to connect with other researchers in his field; his key takeaway, he says, “was the importance of the learning processes that adaptation projects generate within communities—strengthening their collective capacity to adapt over time.”

Luisa Bedoya Taborda, who presented work on adaptation in coastal communities impacted by climate change and violent conflict, says her presentation kickstarted “discussions with researchers and practitioners exploring similar issues in places like Southeast Asia and questions about climate justice, representation and visibility of communities and regions often underrepresented in global adaptation dialogues.” It was an opportunity, she concluded, “to learn from the lived experiences of practitioners and communities in other parts of the world.”

Not all lessons learned were positive, however; it was clear that the global adaptation community suffers from a severe lack of investment. For Dr Henry Bartelet, “the conference highlighted the significant funding gap for climate change adaptation in developing countries, and even funding that is being provided likely does not reach those places where it is actually needed. Combined with the lack of systematic and holistic research on climate change adaptation, there seems to be a huge problem ahead for the world in terms of climate change adaptation.”

In the Australian context, a systematic and holistic response to pressing climate challenges is precisely what was expected from the long-awaited release of the Australian Climate Risk Assessment and National Adaptation Plan reports last month. The documents, noted A/Prof Petr Matous, “should be a wake-up call for the nation. We will need to re-organise fundamental aspects of where and how we live, grow food, and build things, not only to reduce emissions but also to reduce our vulnerability and exposure to these looming hazards.”

Dr Sandra Alday, specialist in risk management at the University of Sydney Business School, praised the approach and methodology of the reports, while reminding us of the importance of continuing work in this space: “the [National Climate Risk Assessment] employs a systems approach to risk assessment. The assessment acknowledges the interconnected system of risks that make an impact on the eight identified interrelated systems. However, there is much that needs to be done to gain deeper and richer insights into the underlying mechanisms of these dynamic interactions and how their effects can change over time.”

SEI members contributed to two case studies in the National Risk Assessment. The first, Economic impact of Black Summer bushfires of 2019–20 – tourism (pp.121-122), was based on work led by Vivienne Reiner and co-authored by her supervisors, A/Prof Arunima Malik and Prof Manfred Lenzen. The second, Northern Rivers flooding and the future under climate change (pp.93-94), based on the work of Dr Rebecca McNaught, from the University Centre for Rural Health, highlights the importance of community self-organisation for resilience and disaster risk reduction.

The National Adaptation Plan focuses on addressing the nationally significant physical climate risks and sets the principles for prioritising climate adaptation action at a federal level. A/Prof Nader Naderpajouh, Head of the School of Project Management and expert in collective action, risk and resilience, reflects: “the National Adaptation Plan outlines the vision for how Australia will adapt to increasing risks associated with climate change. It is specifically important to explore how these adaptation projects are governed, how they might lock-in the communities and their future alternative adaptation pathways, and how governance of adaptation projects can ensure long-term climate targets."

Unfortunately, as Prof David Schlosberg, Director of SEI and expert in justice-based approaches to climate resilience and adaptation notes, the National Adaptation Plan, “while documenting a broad range of efforts across the country, does not actually propose any new forms of governance or funding for nationwide adaptation needs. It leaves the country, in particular those already made vulnerable by poor housing, energy, health, and other policies, at increasing risk.”

Dr Shamila Haddad, an architectural scientist from the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning specialising in climate change mitigation and adaptation, adds that “as climate change escalates health risks, disadvantaged groups already burdened by poor housing quality and energy poverty will be disproportionately affected. Prioritising adaptation for these populations is essential to addressing health disparities, boosting resilience, and mitigating climate-related health impacts.”

The broad potential for continued vulnerability, inequitable impacts, and broader injustices as a result of climate risks and limited adaptation is clear. This is why the approach of SEI, which addresses the necessity of just adaptation, is so crucial – and respected. As Hanna Della Bosca reflected, “representing the Sydney Environment Institute [at Adaptation Futures 2025] allowed me to hear firsthand the ways SEI projects are valued and developed by adaptation practitioners.” Both the recently released risk and adaptation reports and our experience at Adaptation Futures 2025 illustrate the impact of SEI’s research and the necessity of furthering our work with communities and governmental partners to advance policies, practices, and governance structures that are fit for the realities of climate change and reduce risk and vulnerability in just ways.