Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-11 (section)

==== 11.5.2.3 Adaptation ====

<div id="h3-34-siblings" class="h3-siblings"></div>

Investments in mitigation and adaptation can help reduce or prevent economic losses now and in the coming decades ( [[#IPCC--2018|IPCC, 2018]] ; [[#Steffen--2019|Steffen et al., 2019]] ); however, the costs and benefits of mitigation and adaptation are not well understood in the region ( ''high confidence'' ) ( [[#CSIRO--2019|CSIRO, 2019]] ; [[#MfE--2020a|MfE, 2020a]] ).

In New Zealand, the emphasis has been on rebuilding after climate disasters, rather than anticipatory adaptation ( [[#Boston--2018|Boston and Lawrence, 2018]] ). Australia is similarly focused on disaster response and recovery, even though investment in disaster resilience can provide a cost:benefit ratio of 1:2 to 1:11 through reduced post-disaster recovery and reconstruction ( [[#GCA--2019|GCA, 2019]] ). Recent Australian and state government spending on direct recovery from disasters was around AUD$2.75 billion per year, compared to funding for natural disaster resilience of approximately AUD$0.1 billion per year ( [[#Deloitte--2017b|Deloitte, 2017b]] ). The Australian government is supporting most of the 80 recommendations from the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, including establishing a disaster advisory body and a resilience and recovery agency ( [[#CoA--2020e|CoA, 2020e]] ; [[#CoA--2020b|CoA, 2020b]] ). Australia and New Zealand provide humanitarian and disaster assistance across the Pacific, which is increasingly focused on climate adaptation and the SDGs ( [[#Brolan--2019|Brolan et al., 2019]] ) as cyclones and floods become amplified by climate change ( [[#Fletcher--2013|Fletcher et al., 2013]] ) (Table 11.3). Climate change may increase current migration flows to and impacts on diaspora in Australia and New Zealand from near-neighbour island nations as they become increasingly stressed by rising seas, higher temperatures, more droughts and stronger storms ( [[#Nalau--2018|Nalau and Handmer, 2018]] ).

Delaying adaptation to climate risks may result in higher overall costs in future when adaptation is more urgent and impacts more extreme ( ''medium confidence'' ) ( [[#Boston--2018|Boston and Lawrence, 2018]] ; [[#IPCC--2018|IPCC, 2018]] ). Estimates of the magnitude of adaptation costs and benefits in the region are localised and sectoral (e.g., ( [[#Thamo--2017|Thamo et al., 2017]] ) or regionally aggregated ( [[#Joshi--2016|Joshi et al., 2016]] ). Adaptation costs are expected to increase markedly for higher RCPs, for example, a tripling of expected costs between RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 for sea level rise (SLR) protection in Australia ( [[#Ware--2020|Ware et al., 2020]] ). Existing governance arrangements for funding adaptation are inadequate for the scope and scale of climate change impacts anticipated; dedicated funding mechanisms that can be sustained over generations can enable more timely adaptation ( [[#Boston--2018|Boston and Lawrence, 2018]] ).

<div id="11.6" class="h1-container"></div>

<span id="key-risks-and-benefits"></span>