A new report has found the worsening impacts of climate change will increase droughts, flooding and bushfires in Australia’s rural and regional communities; but by harnessing investment in renewable energy, opportunities for growth and even prosperity can be achieved.
The Climate Council’s ‘On the Frontline: Climate Change & Rural Communities’ report says people living and working outside the nation’s cities will be disproportionately affected by climate change, as many primary industries close or take on increased debt in response to extreme weather events.
“Rural and regional communities have already seen a significant reduction in population that has prompted further losses in services and unemployment,” the report states. “Climate change will further exacerbate these stresses.”
Rural and agricultural businesses are highly adaptable to changes in climate conditions, with farmers switching to new breeds of livestock or vineyards moving from the mainland to cooler Tasmania as examples. However, the difficult and costly nature of these changes means the economic gap between rural and urban Australia is likely to widen as climate impacts increase over the next century.
Increasing Australia’s share of renewable energy by focusing development in rural and regional communities presents major opportunities for investment. Australia’s wind and solar resources are among the best in the world, particularly in remote areas of the country.
“The positive news is that tackling climate change provides an unrivalled opportunity to attract jobs and investment back to these communities,” the Climate Council’s Professor Lesley Hughes said. “Rural areas receive about 30-40% of investment in renewables in Australia, valued at $1-2 billion per year.”
Farmers and landholders who host wind turbines on their properties currently receive over $20 million in annual lease payments. In 2015, 14,000 people were employed in Australia’s renewable energy industry, and the report states up to 28,000 new jobs could be created nationally if the nation were to source half its electricity from renewables by 2030.
Importantly, the report notes, these jobs would remain in the country (unlike the car industry, which has moved offshore) and would support the creation of a long supply chain of indirect employment supporting the renewable energy industry.
Climate Council chief councillor Tim Flannery is calling on policymakers to heed the report and take steps to support renewable energy outside Australia’s cities.
“Rural and regional communities are living on the frontline of impacts of worsening extreme weather but they are also on the frontline of the solutions,” he said. “ … renewable power provides enormous opportunities for new income streams and real prospects for energy self-sufficiency, particularly for those in the bush.”
On the Frontline: Climate Change & Rural Communities can be downloaded here (PDF).
