An overview of climate change adaptations in Australian primary industries: impacts, options and priorities

Source: CSIRO
"This review has identified a number of potential options for Australian agriculture to adapt to climate change. Many of these options are extensions or enhancements of existing activities that are aimed at managing the impacts of existing climate variability and improving the sustainability and efficiency in the use of natural resources.However, less than a dozen of these potential adaptation options have been evaluated for their utility in reducing the risks or taking advantage of climate change impacts. Only a couple of adaptations have been evaluated in relation to the broader costs and benefits of their use. · These few analyses show that practicable and financially-viable adaptations will have very significant benefits in ameliorating risks of negative climate changes and enhancing opportunities
where they occur. The benefit to cost ratio of undertaking R&D into these adaptations appears to be very large (indicative ratios greatly exceed 100:1).
· A key recommendation is thus to progress some more adaptation studies which analyse the costs and benefits of implementation of adaptations (including socio-economic aspects as well as potential feedbacks through greenhouse emissions)."