The Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) is actively working to reduce the vulnerability of the agricultural sector to climate variability and change and to increase the sector’s adaptive capacity. In 2010, DAFWA developed a ‘Climate change response strategy’ to provide strategic direction for climate change activities and to identify and prioritise actions to achieve over the following five years. Since the strategy was published, there have been considerable advances in the scientific understanding of climate change. This bulletin reviews the latest scientific information relating to climate change and agriculture in Western Australia (WA).
Climate change is affecting Australia’s natural environment and the human systems it supports. Over the last 100 years, WA’s average annual temperature has increased by about 1 degree Celsius (°C). Rainfall has increased slightly in the north and interior but it has declined significantly along the west coast and in the south-west. Drier conditions have increased frost risk in central and eastern areas of the wheatbelt and increased fire risk throughout the state. There is overwhelming scientific consensus that human activities, particularly those increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, are contributing to these changes by altering the global energy budget and climate.
The peer reviewed, scientific literature indicates a consensus understanding that unless global efforts to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases are rapidly and greatly increased, the effects of climate change may be profound. International ambitions to limit global warming to less than 2°C are beginning to appear increasingly difficult to achieve. A world that is more than 2°C warmer will pose many challenges for human society. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and maintaining the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration below 450 parts per million (ppm) remains the best way to limit the impact of global warming. However, it is prudent to contemplate and plan for a warmer world and to consider 4°C and 5°C increase scenarios as well as 2°C.
