We’ve known of the need for climate adaptation for a decade, but done nothing

For a government that uses climate adaptation as a shield for its inaction on climate change, it sure doesn’t do a lot on adaptation.

Nine years and six months ago, the Productivity Commission wrote a lengthy report on the problems facing effective climate adaptation policies and what could be done to deliver better adaptation for a country that even then was already facing the brunt of a warming climate.

None of the recommendations were ever implemented — though Scott Morrison eventually did the one thing explicitly recommended against by the Productivity Commission: offering home insurance subsidies via the $10 billion reinsurance pool for North Queensland.