What's getting in the way of climate change adaptation, asks Productivity Commission

Key Points:

The Productivity Commission has a wide-ranging brief to investigate environmental, insurance, tax, labour and other possible barriers to climate change adaptation.

The main climate change policy debates are on the carbon tax, mitigation policy, and climate change science generally, but the general regulatory issues get less public attention. That is about to change, with the Productivity Commission's new inquiry Barriers to Effective Climate Change Adaptation.

In the context of climate change, "adaptation" refers to the ability of the natural and built environment to cope with the anticipated impacts of climate change, such as increasing average temperatures and increasing severity of storm activity.