A major new report on the threat posed by climate change to the Australian Tourism industry has been released … and it doesn’t make for pretty reading!
The study from Zurich Financial Services Australia (Zurich) and Mandala Partners (Mandala) looked at the impact of climate change on Australia’s top tourism sites – including major airports, national parks, beaches and museums – under different Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios.
It found that half of Australia’s tourism assets are currently in an elevated risk category, facing considerable climate and natural peril risk. And this is set to rise to between 55% and 68% of Australian tourism sites by 2050 under either an intermediate (two degrees Celsius of warming by 2041-2060) or extreme (three degrees) IPCC future climate scenario respectively.
More extreme weather events such as flooding in this park will be on the cards. PIC: Cizza
Under the more extreme scenario, 80% of tourism sites will experience an increase in risk between 2025 and 2050.
And the report said natural tourism sites were at the most risk.
“Natural tourism sites are on average more geographically dispersed than man-made sites and their susceptibility to the impacts of climate change can be more severe,” the report said. “Natural sites show vulnerability to almost all variations of extreme weather, which can result in permanent structural change to sites and their ecosystems, as well as changes to tourism visitation patterns.”
It also warned that implementing effective resilience measures at natural sites can be more difficult.
“Their complex ecosystems often rely on the very elements that also pose risk, and their often vast size can present challenges,” the report said. “Their natural beauty (with minimal human intervention) is also what often attracts tourists to these locations.”
The Zurich-Mandala Climate Risk Index found that 100% of vineyards & gardens currently fall into the three highest risk categories, with 83% in category 5, making it the most at-risk tourism asset type (not including airports).
The second most at-risk asset type is rainforests and national parks, with 100% of sites impacted. Of these, 77% are in the highest risk category and 15% in the second highest category.
It said the significant risk faced by all of these sites is driven by both their geographic location as well as the site type’s vulnerability to the impacts of several natural perils.
The top 10 most at-risk tourism assets are predominantly rainforests and national parks, facing significant risk from heat, bushfires and wind. They are:
Under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) SSP2-4.5 climate scenario, Australia’s tourism sites will face greater climate risk over time.
SSP2-4.5 is an intermediate scenario for climate risk that assumes 2 degrees Celsius of warming by 2041-2060. It is considered the most likely climate scenario over the near/mid-term given current and committed climate actions.
In the 25 years from 2025 to 2050, the proportion of Australia’s tourism sites in the three highest climate risk categories will rise from 50% to 55%. Sites in the highest three risk categories are likely to face significant risk from multiple perils with a high impact on environmental degradation, tourism functionality and appeal, accessibility, and ecosystem balance (i.e. a national park with a ‘high risk’ from storms and a ‘very high risk’ from heat).
Under the more severe SSP5-8.5 climate scenario, which assumes little or no climate action and up to three degrees of warming by 2041-2060, 80% of sites will see an increase in risk between 2025 and 2050. Under this scenario, 68% of all sites will be in risk category 3 or above by 2050.
Amit Singh, Managing Partner at Mandala, said more than 60% of the domestic tourism spend is in regional communities, and the impact of climate change on tourism was already evident.
“We’ve seen tourist attractions destroyed by bushfires, tourist sites made inaccessible by floods, man-made attractions damaged by hail, airports closed because of extreme winds,” he said. “Climate change is not only a risk to Australia’s natural wonders, it is a risk to the 500,000 jobs created by tourism and the $170 billion of tourism spending each year.”
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Wow, that is unbelievable.
As an 81yo I have seen a lot of modelling and I am yet to see any change in the climate or ocean levels. Though I have seen a lot of environmental vandalism with wind and solar factories that really do concern me! Volatile rare mineral batteries, transmission radiation and magnetic fields all OK now
In case you haven’t noticed, science changes at the whim of billionaires.
So you hate “wind and solar factories” but not coal power stations or gas power stations, or open cut coal mines or the remains of closed coal mines? Science does not change at the whim of billionaires. It is based on facts. Policy changes at the whim of billionaires like Gina Reinhart when things like a Mining Tax affect her.
Thank you Robert, my thoughts to a point.
Totally agree. Interestingly also the scientists have recently found palm trees in Antartica under nearly a mile of ice. the world has been undergoing minor and major cyclical changes for millennia.
Hi William, I’m not trying to be rude but you believe in the science about palm trees in Antarctica (which is true, and there is coal there as well) strange that you then dismiss the thousands of Climate Scientists that are warning us with facts about Climate Change. You and Waylor really to get your head around what is happening,
Im with you ,follow the MONEY.
Yes we’ve noticed a significant change over the past 15 years at popular campsites & rest areas.
This is not caused by climate change, it’s caused by people chopping down trees & hacking into the bush gathering firewood for campfires.
Many places have been completely stripped, no longer the attractive places they once were.
The fire scars are extremely messy & ugly too.
I agree, a lot of damage is done by campers. We have camped all over Australia in what was supposed to natural places. Along some Murray River sites, there are fire places every few metres, no need for that. We all love a fire, use a pre-exciting one or better still one off the ground and take firewood with you.
How true:
“We’ve seen tourist attractions destroyed by bushfires, tourist sites made inaccessible by floods, man-made attractions damaged by hail, airports closed because of extreme winds,” he said. “Climate change is not only a risk to Australia’s natural wonders, it is a risk to the 500,000 jobs created by tourism and the $170 billion of tourism spending each year.”
Climate change has caused:
1. Inflation.
2. Ridiculous IR laws = unsubstantiated wage rises.
3. Low productivity
4. Poor forest management = Greens and hence high fire risks
5. The ME society
6. Environmental vandalism with wind and solar factories
7. Just add to the list…
Climate change is based on poor computer modelling and hence not a real science-based construct.
As noted by 86GTS:
This is not caused by climate change, it’s caused by people chopping down trees & hacking into the bush gathering firewood for campfires.
Many places have been completely stripped, no longer the attractive places they once were.
Many people do not have to money to go and camp/caravan around this great country.
We are still coming out of the Little Ice Age..
cultana This unbacked statement by you is and this time I’m being rude, is BS. How could the moderator even let this be posted. Now it is time for you to give some could evidence for your statements, factual ones!
Every single scientific body on Earth, including NASA, the UN, CSIRO, the Royal Society, and 99.1% of climate scientists believe that climate change/global/heating is accelerating due to human activity. An article about the “Greenhouse Effect” appeared in in the March the 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics, where it appeared as a caption in an article titled “Remarkable Weather of 1911: The Effect of the Combustion of Coal on the Climate — What Scientists Predict for the Future”.
If you don’t believe me, get on to the Popular Mechanics and look it up.
Millions of people around the world die every year from air pollution (asthma etc) caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
If you get on to the NSW RFS (Royal Fire Service) website, do a search for “Climate Change” and you will see that they, the experts risking their lives fighting fires, accept the reality of climate change, making burnoffs harder to schedule, the fire season longer, and risking areas that previously weren’t at risk.
A few years ago a rainforest in Queensland, that nobody ever thought would burn, burned for the first time in thousands, if not millions of years.
If people who haven’t by now accepted that human–induced climate change is real, they just need to research “The Psychology Of Climate Change Denial”,
That might help those people also understand the meaning of “cognitive dissonance”.
They could then join equally conservative people who believed that climate change was real – like the only scientist to be Prime Minister of England – Margaret Thatcher.
So why did it burn “thousands if not millions of years . . “. Must have been hot then too!! folloa the money.
Thank you Robert. I love your last sentence.
Strange that the vast majority of climate change deniers are white men over 60.
And there’s absolutely nothing that can be done about it. The climate has been cyclicaly changing over the eons of time. how do you think coal was generated and is underground, for instance.
Yes William, the Climate throughout time has continually changed, science has proven that so big tick for you for acknowledging that. Now science also says that through burning all that fossil fuel through the past 200-300 years, and still increasing, I wish you would also acknowledge that. You just can’t pick and choose what you believe in science to suit your own person view (opinion).
I have in my posession an opalised pippi that I found 20 meters underground near coober Pedy. must have been a lot of melted ice ‘way back then! Follow the money with the current reasoning behind climate change!
Yes, William let’s follow the money. You may be happy paying $2/L for fuel of which only 25% (50cents worth) makes your vehicle move. During the financial year 2023, the amount of diesel oil imported to Australia was approximately 29.8 thousand megaliters that is, 29,800,000,000L. That’s a lot of money going straight to oil producers overseas. Most of the imported oil is used for transport but also used in coal mining by mainly overseas companies and the bulk of the money goes overseas.
My house, car and caravan are totally powered by sunshine (renewable power). After 9000km of driving my EV it has cost me 4.4cents/km in charging costs.
So, let’s follow the money.
Sad to see so many climate deniers. It’s not rocket science…..if the delicate balance of atmospheric gases is changed, then the way in which the atmosphere traps heat also changes.
We humans have increased CO2 concentration by close to 50% since the 18th century never mind other greenhouse gases.
Global temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise….they are affecting the climate.
I suggest the sceptics take a deep breath and educate themselves, we and our children have a serious problem.