A Sunburnt Country: Australia’s Climate Change Catastrophe and the Implications for Social Policy
As global fossil fuel emissions continue to accelerate, scientists are increasingly warning that the damage caused by climate change will lead to unprecedented challenges for humanity. In fact, the impacts of climate change are already posing significant challenges for social policy – especially in areas affected by climate-induced natural disasters.
Image sourced from Wikimedia
2019 was a year of unprecedented extreme weather events, ranging from record-breaking heatwaves to catastrophic flooding. It was also the second warmest year on record, which made the 2010s the first decade to reach an average temperature of 1 °C above late 19th-century temperatures. Scientists are confident that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades, and that “the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time”.
In a world where political action on climate change has continued to stagnate in the face of ever-worsening effects, constructing reactive social policy seems to be an impossible task. Nonetheless, it is an important consideration, as the climate consequences threatens to undo the progress of hundreds of years of social justice.
How climate change challenges social policy
Ian Gough, Visiting Professor at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) and an Associate at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (GRI) at the London School of Economics, has produced numerous publications regarding the social dimensions of climate change.
In a 2013 lecture delivered at the Social Policy Association annual conference at Sheffield University, Gough stated that the main priority of social policy will be “to adapt habitats and infrastructure to new climatic threats.” Environmental threats to social policy give rise to a “double injustice” where the groups and nations least responsible for climate change bear most of the impacts. In wealthier nations such as Britain, Australia and the United States, this creates significant disadvantage for the already socially vulnerable.
What does this disadvantage look like?
Projected reductions in crop yields will increase food prices, causing poorer communities to suffer from malnutrition. Damage caused to homes and business by more intense disasters will also tip more people into poverty and homelessness. Dwindling access to fresh water and more exposure to unrelenting heat waves will also cause poor health outcomes, while rising sea levels will displace millions who are unable to afford to move. Climate change further impacts gender inequality, as women face higher risks and greater burdens regarding poverty and exposure to violence.
Most urgently, the effects of climate change may completely erode our modern conception of human rights. In 2019, a report from a UN human rights expert suggested we are increasingly at risk of a “climate apartheid” where wealthier classes can pay to escape the worst effects of climate change while the rest of the world suffers. The beginnings of this trend can already be seen in the growing amounts of energy poverty, where poorer individuals are more inclined to suffer from health conditions related to worsening heat waves given a limited access air conditioning.
Australia: a climate case study
Australia is a pertinent case study of what happens in wealthier nations when cuts to social programs are impacted by climate disaster. As direct costs from the bushfires soar into the billions, many of Australia’s most vulnerable citizens have been cast adrift with little to no safety net.
Australia begun the 2020s on the front lines of climate devastation. An early start to the fire season combined with record low rainfall and dry conditions, has resulted in catastrophic bushfires that have already burned through an estimated 10.7 million hectares of land.
The 2019-20 bushfires are already causing intense issues in terms of social policy, especially when it comes to the nation’s most vulnerable. Australia, like the United Kingdom, has implemented a number of austerity policies that have caused flow-on effects such as cuts to vital services, outsourcing to private providers, devolving powers to local government and placing more responsibility in the hands of individuals. These austerity measures have influenced the crisis in numerous ways, from how the fires have been fought to the survival of citizens in its aftermath.
Even before the fires began, emergency services were denied crucial funding to purchase specialised equipment to help manage more intense bushfire seasons. Firefighters on the front lines, who often work in a volunteer capacity, have been forced to crowdfund to buy facemasks that could sufficiently protect their lungs. Many firefighters in New South Wales have spent up to 100 days away from their regular employment, and while public service employees are able to claim up to four week’s paid leave, this support has not been extended to non-government workers or those who are self-employed.
Those receiving government benefits have fared even worse. Currently, unemployed Australians who receive certain government benefits such as Newstart or Youth Allowance must fulfil mutual obligations to keep receiving payments. For most jobseekers, this includes applying to 20 job listings per month and attending 30 hours of a Work for the Dole program each fortnight. Volunteer firefighters who are still helping to control ongoing fires were given a temporary amnesty from these obligations, only for them to resume again from Monday 20 January. This is despite active fires continuing to burn across the east coast.
For those receiving crisis payments after losing their homes and businesses, Australia’s peak welfare body has suggested the current amount being paid is “seriously inadequate”, especially for victims living on lower incomes and with fewer assets. While the Australian government has pledged an extra $50m to charities assisting in bushfire relief efforts, it is clear the country’s other social safety nets are not functioning effectively.
These immediate challenges signify more issues on the horizon, which while speculative, illustrate the ongoing costs of natural disasters. These include an increased burden on already strained mental health services, heightened rates of domestic and family violence, considerable health risks for homeless populations, and long-term health problems caused by continued smoke exposure. Aboriginal Australians are also experiencing significant cultural loss that is compounding experiences of inter-generational trauma, as the fires have destroyed many resources and sacred sites that previously endured for thousands of years.
What can we learn from Australia?
The most important conclusion that can be made from the Australian bushfire crisis is that “business as usual” is not working. Crucially, the impact of this disasters has revealed gaping holes in the government’s current social policy strategies.
Current measures, which already struggle to serve the marginalised people who must use them, are not robust enough to support the additional pressure from the sudden losses of homes and livelihoods. The interconnected web of not-for-profits that have increasingly taken responsibility for social welfare will similarly struggle to meet a new demand for services, as many of them have lost vital public funding from the federal government. However, it is not enough to adjust social policy to provide a greater cushion for these impacts.
Without a significant reduction in carbon emissions, bushfires and other extreme weather events will only increase in number and severity. This necessitates that more funds be driven into natural disaster recovery, as well as the rapid adaptation of cities and societies to help humanity survive this grave new normal. Social welfare, which is already the target of austerity measures, will likely continue to drop in importance. This is an alarming outcome, as even limited global heating under 2 °C will require “a robust social safety net” to combat unavoidable harms and preserve progress on economic and social rights.
Importantly, the relationship between social inequality and climate change is not unidirectional. Not only does climate change have the potential to increase social inequality, but current inequalities in people’s living conditions are making it more difficult to move towards a solution. As Larry Elliott argues in his recent article published in the Guardian, “if poor people are expected to make all the sacrifices, expect some resistance. And expect the battle ahead to be long and hard”. ). Consequently, investing efforts into proactive social policy that increases the agency of individual workers is integral to success.
The climate crisis cannot be ignored, as it poses an existential threat to the core mechanisms of a fair and just society. If governments refuse to take concrete action on reducing emissions, they must be prepared to enact policy that addresses the worst possible impacts of global heating. Otherwise, hundreds of years of social progress will be lost as more and more will be subject to extreme disadvantage and inequality
Isobel Montgomery is the University of Adelaide's 111th Rhodes Scholar, and former Media & Communications Officer of Women's Safety Services SA. Having completed a Bachelor of Arts and Media with honours, she is currently undertaking an MPhil in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at Oxford's Department of Social Policy and Intervention. Her current research interests are focused on the potential of creative therapies to reduce symptoms of complex trauma in young people. She is also a passionate advocate for the eradication of gender-based violence. For more of her work, follow her on Twitter under @isobelmonty.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect any editorial policy.