Two big climate-related documents for Australia released on Monday 15th September 2025

It was perhaps appropriate that I was attending the first day of CEC’s ‘Queensland Clean Energy Summit 2025’ yesterday when we noticed that the much-awaited modelling and adaptation reports from the Federal Government were released.

So I thought I would delay my attendance at day 2 this morning whilst posting about this (and some other related things as well):

 

The Climate Risk Assessment The Adaptation Plan

The 184-page ‘National Climate Risk Assessment Report’ is accessible here:

2025-09-15-NationalClimateRiskAssessment-Cover

There’s more information about this Risk Assessment on the Australian Climate Service website here.

Perhaps less heralded (but no less important?) is the 76-page ‘National Adaption Plan’, which is accessible here:

2025-09-15-NationalAdaptionPlan-Cover

There’s more information about this report, and some accompanying Policies and Context documents on the DCCEEW website here.

 

With respect to this release of these two reports, readers might like to note the following:

 

(A)  What Minister Chris Bowen notes about the report

There’s a Media Release titled ‘Cascading, compounding and concurrent: National Climate Risk Assessment shows why climate action is so important’ – in which  Minister Bowen (and two other ministers) note:

‘Australia’s first independent National Climate Risk Assessment created by the Australian Climate Service compiles data and analysis from world-leading experts and scientists from the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geoscience Australia. It is being released today in full, together with the supporting technical analysis.

Developed to guide Australia in response to the risk assessment’s findings, the Government has also released Australia’s first National Adaptation Plan. It outlines the extensive adaptation action already underway, including Australia’s first National Health and Climate Strategy, the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework and hundreds of infrastructure, emergency management and disaster resilience projects already funded through the Government’s $1 billion Disaster Ready Fund.

So plenty of reading there.

 

 

(B)  News Media commentary about these Reports

Since its release, we have seen plenty of commentary in a range of places, including the following:

 

1)  In the AFR we have seen…

(a)  First article in the AFR was ‘Apocalyptic report a ‘wake-up call’ on climate impacts: PM’ by Ryan Cropp at 10:00 on Monday 15th September.

(b)  And there has been plenty of other commentary since that time (which we might come back here to note later).

2)  In the Australian we have seen …

(a)  Greg Brown wrote  ‘Ambitious emissions target ‘will make Australians proud’, Chris Bowen declares’ on Monday 15th September.

(b)  And, likewise, there has been plenty of other articles (including the expected commentary)

 

3)  In the Guardian we have seen …

(a)  Dan Jervis-Brady wrote  ‘Warning of climate breakdown and soaring heat deaths a ‘wake up call’ for Australia, PM says’ on Monday 15th September.

 

4)  In SMH and the Age we have seen …

(a)  Nick O’Malley, Shane Wright and Caitlin Fitzsimmons published the article ‘Catastrophic forecast pushes case for Australia to spend big and cut hard on emissions’

 

5)  In RenewEconomy we have seen …

(a)  Rachel Williamson published the article ‘“Prudent” for Australia to plan for 2-3ºC temp rise says grim climate assessment’

 

6)  In PV Magazine we have seen …

 

7)  In the ABC we have seen …

(a)  Jake Evans noted ‘First climate risk assessment finds 1.5m Australians at risk from sea level rise by 2050’

 

8)  In The Energy we have seen …

 

9)  In Michael West Media we have seen …

As a reader here, if you come across any other useful commentary, feel free to add as a comment below.

 

 

(C)  Elsewhere

If we see anything (that we think is) particularly insightful on Social Media (and we have the time!) we’ll look to note it here:


About the Author

Paul McArdle
Paul was one of the founders of Global-Roam in February 2000. He is currently the CEO of the company and the principal author of WattClarity. Writing for WattClarity has become a natural extension of his work in understanding the electricity market, enabling him to lead the team in developing better software for clients. Before co-founding the company, Paul worked as a Mechanical Engineer for the Queensland Electricity Commission in the early 1990s. He also gained international experience in Japan, the United States, Canada, the UK, and Argentina as part of his ES Cornwall Memorial Scholarship.

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