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Summary: Climate change is likely to have significant impacts on Australia’s biota and society in the next century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently concluded that there is sufficient evidence to support these predictions. Alterations in soil characteristics, water and nutrient cycling, plant productivity, species interactions (competition, predation, parasitism, etc.) and the composition and function of ecosystems were identified as highly likely responses to the predicted increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature, and shifts in rainfall regimes. In addition, impacts on biodiversity are likely to be exacerbated by changes in the occurrence of disturbances such as wildfire and insect outbreaks.

The Ecological Society of Australia (ESA) believes that a focused program of climatic and ecological research, prediction and monitoring is required to address the needs of maintaining the diversity and integrity of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems under a changing climate. The primary goals of these activities would be to better understand and forecast the consequences of global environmental change for biological diversity and to form a more certain basis for Australia’s response by way of mitigation and adaptation. The ESA emphasises the importance of all environmental change, since it will be the direct and indirect cumulative effects of all changes, including human-induced climate change, which ultimately decides the fate of ecosystems and their biota.

The Ecological Society of Australia believes that a strong but precautionary commitment is required from government, industry and the community to mitigate and adapt to the predicted impacts of climate change on Australia’s unique native biota. Alternative measures should be subject to risk assessment to determine their benefits relative to their costs, both in monetary terms as well as other potentially adverse ecological impacts.