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Barrier
Description
to make well-informed adaptation decisions. Other market barriers include:
x
cognitive barriers – psychological factors that affect perception of urgency
x
disincentives for self-preparedness – despite knowledge of risks, markets don’t
always generate the right signals for individuals and businesses to prepare. This
results in moral hazards with Governments acting as insurers of last resort.
x
Investment barriers – limited investments in adaptable assets because benefits are
outside the investment timeframe.
x
Transaction costs and externalities – coordination costs to work across region
resulting in unintended consequences.
Failure of insurance mechanisms as a viable market option may serve as a barrier to
adaptation.
There are also market failures associated with ecosystems, including property rights and
lack of economic prices leading to under investment by private agents.
Regulatory barriers
Regulations that inhibit effective adaptation. For example, a lack of integration of building
and planning regulation could create a barrier to adaptation where one or neither system
addresses a particular environmental hazard (such as riverine flooding) leading to gaps in
the regulatory framework.
Technical standards require regular review to ensure they do not become obsolete over
time as the climate changes. Other standards include the Australian Rainfall and Runoff
Standard, and the Australian Risk Management Standard.
Uncertainty in the legal requirement for adaptation, leading to court appeals. A key issue
is the absence of guidance on the relative weighting that should be given to climate
change considerations.
Governance and
institutional barriers
Governance arrangements that are not consistent with best practice and impede
coordination between governments and agencies, reduce accountability or lead to
authorities being allocated responsibilities for which they do not have sufficient capacity
to carry out effectively.
For example, the current legal liability of councils is uncertain when making land-use
planning decisions relating to land that is subject to future climate change risks. In some
cases, councils may defer decisions as they are uncertain about the legal implications of
their decisions. This is accentuated where development policy may not be sufficiently up
to date.
Achieving agreement on the definition of public good and the responsibilities (and
resource allocation) of different stakeholders can serve as a barrier to adaptation. This
also requires agreement on whether any intervention is for the purposes of a public good.
Behavioral barriers
Ways people process information and make decisions, which could act as a barrier to
effective adaptation. For example, individuals may have trouble weighing up costs and
benefits that occur over long timeframes. As a result, some may respond to the long
timeframes and uncertain impacts of climate change by procrastinating and deferring
adaptation decisions that would be in their own best interest.
Information Barriers There is lack of sufficient knowledge about extent and intensity of climate change impacts
at a localised level, and the available actions to address these, the costs and benefits of
the actions, and how to plan and manage for the timeframes.
There is a plethora of information available to stakeholders, but few tools for councils to
translate climate change impacts into financial and asset management plans. This is
being addressed by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility.
