Workshop on Valuing
Adaptation
11–12 December 2012, Melbourne
Workshop Report
Dave Griggs, Marion Carey, Jim Curtis, Tahl Kestin, Kate Rigby,
Janet Stanley, John Thwaites, Philip Wallis & Michael Ward
MSI Report 13/01
February 2013
www.monash.edu/research/sustainability-institute
© Monash Sustainability Institute 2013
MSI Report 13/1, February 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9870821-4-5
Authors
Dave Griggs1, Marion Carey1, Jim Curtis2, Tahl Kestin1, Kate Rigby3, Janet Stanley1, John Thwaites1, Philip Wallis1 & Michael Ward1,4
1
Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University
BehaviourWorks Australia
3
School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, Monash University
4
Department of Economics, Monash University
2
Contact
Monash Sustainability Institute
Building 74, Clayton Campus
Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia
T: +61 3 9905 9323
E: enquiries@msi.monash.edu
W: www.monash.edu/research/sustainability-institute/
Acknowledgement
This work was carried out with financial support from the Australian Government (Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency)
and the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF). The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of
the Commonwealth or NCCARF, and neither the Commonwealth nor NCCARF accept responsibility for information or advice contained
herein.
The role of NCCARF is to lead the research community in a national interdisciplinary effort to generate the information needed by
decision-makers in government, business and in vulnerable sectors and communities to manage the risk of climate change impacts.
Disclaimer
Monash University disclaims all liability for any error, loss or consequence which may arise from relying on any information in this
publication.
Table of Contents
Summary and Recommendations ..................................................................................................................... 2
Workshop Overview........................................................................................................................................... 4
Opening Session ............................................................................................................................................... 5
Governance Session ......................................................................................................................................... 6
Ethics Session ................................................................................................................................................... 8
Psychology and Behaviour Change Session .................................................................................................. 10
Politics Session ................................................................................................................................................ 12
Wellbeing Session ........................................................................................................................................... 14
Economics Session ......................................................................................................................................... 16
Appendix 1: Workshop Program ...................................................................................................................... 18
Appendix 2: Participants .................................................................................................................................. 20
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|1
Summary and Recommendations
The Workshop on Valuing Adaptation took place on 11–12 December 2012 and was hosted by the Monash
Sustainability Institute (MSI) with funding from the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility
(NCCARF) Social, Economic and Institutional dimensions of adaptation (SEI) Network. The workshop
explored how personal values, and the process of comparing the value of different outcomes, influence how
decisions on climate change adaptation are made. It created a cross-disciplinary conversation to allow
different sectors and disciplines to share insights and approaches to this issue.
Traditional economic approaches to decision making for climate change adaptation, such as cost-benefit
analysis, assume a rational weighing up of costs and benefits. However, these approaches fall short for
several important reasons, which are explained below. A key to improved adaptation decisions is greater
comprehensiveness in the factors that are considered as part of the decisions, and greater awareness and
openness about the methodological assumptions, value judgements, and ethical considerations that affect
the decision making process.
Traditional economic approaches leave out many important considerations, particularly the value of
natural and social capital to human wellbeing.
There is a growing understanding that human wellbeing is closely dependent on four interacting forms of
capital: built, human, social and natural capitals. Traditional economic analyses have generally overlooked
the value of natural capital (e.g. ecosystem services) and social capital (e.g. community cohesiveness).
However, a growing body of work is showing that their contribution to human wellbeing and quality of life is
very high, and so must be taken into account in assessments of adaptation options.
Methodologies are currently being developed to measure the economic value of social and natural capitals.
Such figures can be included in an assessment of a comprehensive value of adaptation. Another approach
looks at developing indices of wellbeing that would replace strictly monetary-based indices. However, this
work is still at an early stage.

There is an urgent need to further work on valuing social and natural capital. Work is needed on
understanding the essential elements needed for human wellbeing and on developing consistent
measures and methods for capturing their value.

Social considerations need to be routinely taken into account in all government projects by being
included in project evaluation and measurement of outcomes.
Traditional cost-benefit approaches ignore ethical considerations.
Ethical and moral traditions (including religions) value people, communities and the natural environment
beyond just their utility (i.e. as “capital”) for human wellbeing. Climate change, as largely an anthropogenic
problem with potentially dire consequences for many human communities as well as countless nonhuman
beings, has to be considered from an ethical perspective, not as a matter of fate, but as a question of justice.
A social justice perspective holds that we have a moral obligation to care for the most vulnerable people in
our local or global society. Those are the people who likely contributed least to climate change yet are likely
to bear the brunt of its impacts, particularly as a result of extreme weather and climate events.

Adaptation policy should be informed by a detailed understanding of the relative vulnerability,
resilience and adaptive capacity of different social groups in different geographical locations.
Strategies, structures and programs need to be developed to specifically assist the most vulnerable
with a view to ameliorating rather than aggravating existing inequities.
An inter-species justice perspective holds that adaptation policy should be inclusive of the survival needs of
other species. This bio-inclusive ethic is currently only weakly practiced in policy discourses through the
valuing of biodiversity and conservation of endangered species. However, waiting until all species are at risk
before making moves to save them would be a recipe for wholesale ecological attrition. An alternative
concept to consider is one of bio-proportionality, which would aim for ecologically optimal, rather than
residual, populations for all species (including humans).
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|2

There is need for further examination of the questions raised by the concept of bio-proportionality, in
particular the necessity of considering the limitation of human population and ‘ecological footprint’ in
relation to optimising the adaptive capacity of all populations of living entities.
Further conceptual thinking is needed in order to develop ethical frameworks for adaptation policy, taking
into account both social and inter-species justice perspectives. This would include incorporation of
consideration of cultural differences, including traditional knowledge and religious understandings, in framing
ethical perspectives on adaptation

There is a need for the creation of an environmental ethics centre or institute to bring leading edge
thinking on bio-inclusion more directly into the mainstream of climate change and sustainability
research, public discussion and policy development.
People, including policymakers, are not rational.
People’s beliefs and decisions in relation to climate change adaptation are influenced by different basic
human values and value priorities. They are also influenced by the media, cultural and psychological factors,
emotions, decision-making biases, and recent significant or traumatic events such as floods or bushfires.
While people might hold the same set of core values, they will inevitably prioritise them differently, which will
subsequently lead to differences in their beliefs and behaviour.. And, because the influence of values in
decision making is usually not explicit, what often appears to be a disagreement over facts is actually a
disagreement on basic value priorities.

We need to spend more time understanding why we come to different conclusions about climate
change adaptation options, particularly how these conclusions are shaped by different value
priorities.

We need to be aware that people will “value” adaptation based on different basic human values and
decision-making biases, and then using this knowledge to build formative public engagement
campaigns to prepare the community for change or action. This might go some ways towards
fostering greater agreement on climate change adaptation behaviours.
Ultimately, there is no objective way of valuing adaptation.
Even seemingly objective economic approaches, like cost-benefit analysis, contain hidden parameters,
choices, assumptions and tradeoffs. Because the approach has become so standard, many of the people
who perform or use the results of these analyses are not aware of these underlying choices. While costbenefit analysis can be improved with the inclusion of information on social and natural capital, for example,
what to include is again a matter of judgement. Methods like multi-criteria decision analysis, which are
replacing cost-benefit analysis in some areas, also require considerable subjective judgements but have the
advantage of making those judgements more explicit.

Whatever method is being used, we can improve the way we make decisions on adaptation by
making the assumptions and subjective choices that are being used to calculate the benefits and
costs explicit and clear.

A scenario approach, similar to the one used in climate modelling, could be used to produce a range
of plausible answers based on different methods or different choices within one method. This will go
some way to discouraging the notion that whatever value is produced once a particular method is
applied is the “right” one.
Academic areas in addition to economics can offer policymakers valuable perspectives on valuing adaptation
options. These areas include sustainability science, social inclusion, health and wellbeing, law, ethics,
political science, psychology and behaviour change, and education.

There is a need for increased dialogue between academic thinkers and policy makers by developing
a way of institutionalising multi-disciplinary advice on adaptation for federal and state governments.
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|3
Workshop Overview
This workshop explored how personal values, and the process of valuing different outcomes, influence how
decisions on climate change adaptation are made.
Workshop convenor: Professor Dave Griggs (Monash University)
If you are a policymaker or a community faced with a decision about whether to protect a coastal community
from sea level rise, or to save an endangered species threatened by more frequent drought, or how to
respond to increased health risks of more frequent and extreme heatwaves, how do you make those
decisions? And if you have limited resources and have to decide between them, how do you decide which
one to choose?
Key to answering these questions is how to value different forms of capital, natural capital, human or social
capital, built capital. In the past, economic approaches such as Cost Benefit Analysis have undervalued or
not valued these “externalities”. However, techniques are now being developed to do this and new economic
approaches are also being developed, such as multi-criteria decision analysis. However, there is still
considerable background research needed before a value can be put on many of the more intangible forms
of capital. In addition, is it legitimate to build one form of capital at the expense of another? For example, is it
OK to protect built capital by prescribed burning when this might reduce the habitat for a threatened species,
thus having an adverse effect on natural capital? So, how and what are the ways one form of capital should
or should not be traded off against another in adapting to climate change.
Can these new economic approaches really place a true value on nature and community? How do the
political process or people’s values beliefs and behaviours affect the adaptation decisions we make? How do
we build ethical considerations into adaptation decisions? And how do governance and political systems and
processes help or hinder in making the right adaptation decisions?
The Workshop on Valuing Adaptation, which was hosted by the Monash Sustainability Institute (MSI) with
funding from the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) Social, Economic and
Institutional dimensions of adaptation (SEI) Network, set out to examine the latest thinking on these issues.
In particular, it aimed to create a cross-disciplinary conversation, with each session providing insights and
approaches from different sectoral or disciplinary perspectives. The sessions covered the following
perspectives: governance, ethics, psychology and behaviour change, politics, wellbeing, and economics (see
Appendix 1 for the full program).
The workshop took place on 11–12 December 2012 at the Monash Law Chambers in Melbourne and was
attended by over 60 participants (see Appendix 2) from the academic, governmental and community sectors.
The participants represented a diverse range of areas, including economics, governance, ethics, religion,
psychology and behaviour change, policymaking, politics, environmental science, education, health, social
inclusion, and media.
The remaining sections of this report provide a summary of the issues discussed at each of the sessions (in
order the order in which the sessions took place).
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|4
Opening Session
The opening session of the workshop set the context for the workshop with three keynote presentations on
the often hidden influence of value judgements in policymaking, and on the importance of, and methods for
valuing the often neglected natural and social capitals in adaptation decisions.
Convenor: Professor Dave Griggs (Monash University)
Speakers:
Blair Comley (Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency)
Professor Robert Costanza (Australian National University)
Dr Cassandra Goldie (Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS))
In his opening address, Blair Comley, Secretary of the Australian Government Department of Climate
Change and Energy Efficiency, reflected on why in policy discussions on climate change adaptation there is
often little agreement even on simple policy questions. He suggested that disagreements on this topic occur
primarily for two reasons: (1) people differ in basic value judgements (e.g., the view that nature exists as a
resource for people versus the view that people do not have a right to change the environment), and (2) they
disagree on subjective judgements of fact (e.g., what the impacts of climate change will be, how much to
value the future over the present). He contended that what often appears to be a disagreement over
subjective judgements of fact is actually a disagreement on basic value judgements, as people usually start
out with the assumption that others share their values. He concluded that spending more time understanding
why we come to different conclusions about climate change adaptation policy, particularly how these
conclusions are shaped by value judgements, could lead to a richer understanding of policy options.
Professor Robert Costanza, Chair in Public Policy at The Australian National University’s Crawford School
of Public Policy, introduced a systems view of how the world “works”, showing that human wellbeing is
closely dependent on four interacting forms of capital: built, human, social and natural capitals. Of these,
natural (ecosystem services) and social capital have until recently been overlooked, but a growing body of
work on their value to human wellbeing and quality of life has shown that it is massive – on par or higher
than global GDP – and might help change people’s world view of their importance. He described efforts to
develop better measures of policy progress than the commonly used but highly limited proxy of GDP. As an
example he introduced the “Genuine Progress Indicator” (GPI), which include measures of all four types of
capital and is currently being trialled by several jurisdictions as a progress indicator instead of GDP. He
summed up by calling for the discussion to change from assessing problems to finding solutions; and that an
open discussion on worldviews and what the world we are trying to achieve looks like are essential.
In the final talk of the opening session, Dr Cassandra Goldie, CEO of the Australian Council of Social
Service (ACOSS), highlighted the disproportionate suffering that climate change and extreme events inflict
on people experiencing poverty and inequality. Even a rich country like Australia has a large but mostly
invisible group of vulnerable people – including the poor, the elderly, the homeless, people with disabilities,
and Aboriginal and Torres Straights Islanders. These groups have been disproportionately affected by recent
climate extremes, but have largely been overlooked in government responses. Exacerbating this situation,
the community sector, which provides assistance to millions of Australia’s most vulnerable people every year,
is often left out of discussions on disaster response and out of disaster assistance. A recent study by
ACOSS has found that while most community organisations are deeply concerned about climate change and
extreme events, they are highly vulnerable and have few resources to increase preparedness. Dr Goldie
called for further recognition and support for the community sector to build resilience to extreme events and
adapt to climate change, as the human consequences of failing to act are far greater than the cost of doing
this work.
Videos of these presentations can be found on the MSI website at www.monash.edu/research/sustainabilityinstitute/events/12-12-11_valuing-adaptation.html.
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|5
Governance Session
The governance session was designed to bring workshop participants together in conversation to explore
different perspectives on values and valuing. An interactive conversation mapping activity gave participants a
chance to share their ideas and report back to the whole workshop.
Convenors: Dr Philip Wallis, (Monash University) Professor Ray Ison (Monash University & Open University)
& Dr Anna Lukasiewicz (Charles Sturt University)
Creating the conditions for the effective governance of climate change adaptation in Australia requires an
appreciation of the complex, uncertain, interconnected and dynamic situations in which adaptation is to occur.
The adaptation policy discourse is only just beginning to gain prominence in Australia, but is already being
framed by a market-based perspective that preferences ‘value-free’ and rational scientific input to policy
development (e.g. the 2012 Productivity Commission report). This perspective does not adequately consider
opportunities and constraints outside economic markets in a whole-of-system approach to include the
relationships within and between social-cultural, institutional, economic and ecological systems.
Climate change is widely understood as something to mitigate or adapt to. This framing of ‘adaptation to’
positions climate change as an external force that society needs to respond to by changing its ways, and is
one that can lead to a trap in thinking about a stable end-point where society is adapted. The notion that
‘stationarity is dead’ (Milly, et al. 2008) is often overlooked in planning for a future along linear projections of
climate change impacts and current societal values. In relational terms, ‘adaptation to’ involves a static
response to dynamic change, in which the static response may be considered ‘maladaptive’ as the dynamic
unfolds over time.
One alternative framing is ‘adaptation with’ climate change, in which adaptation isn’t a single end-point, but is
bounded by a range of states that are considered to be successfully adaptive. This recognises that climate
change adaptation is strongly embedded in the social and takes into account the adaptive capacity of human
systems. This mode of ‘adapting with’ climate change offers the advantage of being better able to maintain
the coupling between dynamic human and natural systems. However, maintaining the ‘resilience’ of this
relationship may also be a maladaptive response where instead transformation is required.
In another alternative framing, society engages in a dynamic and co-evolutionary performance with climatechanging situations. Such situations are not bounded by disciplinary topics (e.g. infrastructure, freshwater
biodiversity, health), but are systemically interconnected, messy, complex and uncertain. Preference is given
to relational capital – that is, the ability of people to learn and interact with each-other and other (natural and
constructed) elements of socio-ecological systems. Governance is not restricted to ‘government’, but relates
to the process of steering and managing a new trajectory that is systemically viable in a climate-changing
situation (Godden et al., 2011). Processes of social, continuous learning underpin these trajectories, and the
act of ‘knowing’ and ‘valuing’ replaces concepts of ‘knowledge’ and ‘values’ that can be created, transferred
or used. What is successfully adaptive is continuously co-constructed from a range of different perspectives
and ways of valuing.
In his opening presentation, Dr Philip Wallis, from the Systemic Governance Research Program at the
Monash Sustainability Institute, introduced different ways of framing climate change adaptation. He opened
with the idea that we face a future full of challenging sustainability situations, influenced by our history and
constructed by our traditions of understanding. These situations will be ‘wicked’; characterised by uncertainty,
interconnectedness, multiple perspectives, controversy, and will be dynamic and changing. He identified a
trap in trying to frame these situations as problems with linear solutions of adapting ‘to’ climate change.
Instead, Dr Wallis posed an alternative framing of adapting ‘with’ climate change through the concept of
‘systemic governance’, in which society engages with unfolding situations adaptively and reframes ‘problems’
through conversation.
Following an interactive conversation mapping session, Dr Anna Lukasiewicz from Charles Sturt University
presented about some of the institutional barriers to better governing a range of landscape influences on
river health. She described a climate change adaptation catchment assessment framework that considers
adaptation potential, effectiveness of actions, benefits and barriers. This framework represented a
systematic ecosystem-based approach to identifying low-risk and no-regrets adaptation actions that meet
environmental, economic and social values.
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|6
Professor Ray Ison, also from the Systemic Governance Research Program at the Monash Sustainability
Institute, highlighted the difference between the noun ‘value’ and the verb ‘valuing’. He made the point that
the origins of the word ‘value’ are related to that of ‘valiant’, in the sense of being strong or being well; in its
earliest uses it was a verb, not a noun. He made the distinction that the act of valuing is based on an
understanding of valuing as a social process from which value emerges. In more specific terms, the praxis of
valuing involves those practices through which what we can distinguish as ‘value’ emerges. From this
perspective, value does not exist in and of itself, it always arises in praxis and is firmly grounded in the
emotions that give rise to our doings. Professor Ison offered some ideas about moving towards governance
that incorporates practices of valuing.
Key recommendations
Engaging with different ways of seeing sustainability situations, and framing adaptation, are important for a
climate-change future. Approaches to governing adaptation that incorporate both systematic and systemic
elements are necessary. Governance which attends to perspectives, multiple partial views, assumptions,
framings, traps….and much more… has much to contribute in a climate-change world.
References
Godden, L., Ison, R.L. & Wallis, P.J. (2011) Water Governance in a Climate Change World: Appraising
Systemic and Adaptive Effectiveness. Water Resources Management, 25(15):3971-3976.
Milly, P.C.D. et al. (2008) Stationarity Is Dead: Whither Water Management? Science, 319(5863):573–574.
Productivity Commission (2012) Barriers to Effective Climate Change Adaptation, Draft Report released 27
April. Available at: http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/climate-change-adaptation.
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|7
Ethics Session
This session addressed the role of ethical considerations, concerning both social justice and human ethical
accountability towards nonhuman others, in developing adaptation policy.
Convenor: Professor Kate Rigby (Monash University)
Speakers:
Dr Kate Lonsdale (Stockholm Environment Institute and UK Climate Impacts Program, Oxford University)
Professor Deborah Bird Rose (Macquarie University)
Professor Freya Mathews (La Trobe University)
Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black (Australian Religious Response to Climate Change)
As a largely anthropogenic problem with potentially dire consequences for many human communities as well
as countless nonhuman beings, climate change has to be considered from an ethical perspective, not as a
matter of fate, but as a question of justice. The ethical aspect of climate change is usually framed in terms of
the temporal and spatial distance between perpetrators and victims, in the sense that the impacts of
historical and current greenhouse gas emissions from affluent industrialised nations are being passed on to
poorer nations, future generations and countless species of flora and fauna. However, even within wealthy
nations such as Australia, climate change is likely to impact some more severely than others, including many
who have contributed little, if anything, to global warming. This implies that ethical considerations also need
to be taken into account in developing adaptation, as well as mitigation, policies.
The first presenter in this session, Dr Kate Lonsdale (Stockholm Environment Institute and UK Climate
Impacts Program, Oxford University), approached the ethics of adaptation from a human-centred
environmental justice perspective, outlining the work that she is involved with in the UK in association with
the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. This work is
underpinned by recognition of the uneven distribution of human vulnerability to climate change impacts and
is oriented towards developing support structures for older people, ethnic minority groups, lower income
groups, and people with disabilities. The increasing frequency and intensity of climate extremes (in the UK,
these are especially heat waves and flooding) has the capacity to both expose and exacerbate existing
social deprivation. Adaptation policy should be informed by a detailed understanding of the relative
vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity of different social groups in different geographical locations,
not only in the face of immediate impacts (i.e. physical safety in the midst of a single extreme weather event),
but also indirect impacts (e.g. lack of property insurance), cumulative impacts (e.g. of a series of extremes),
and synergistic effects (e.g. the combined impact on a family’s ability to work after a flooding event,
combined with mental health problems as a result of living with flood risk).
Our second presenter, Professor Deborah Bird Rose (Macquarie University), argued that climate change
and environmental crisis is generating a ‘contact zone’ where the nature/culture divide collapses and the
possibilities of life and death for everyone are at stake. For example, extreme events such as major storms
or bushfires are experienced not only by humans but by animals, plants, soils, water systems and more.
Given that biodiversity increases ecosystem resilience, prudence alone dictates that adaptation policy should
be inclusive of the survival needs of other species. However, in the interests of justice and compassion, too,
we humans are called to understand ourselves as members of multispecies communities of fate. Although
such communities or such forms of inclusion are often not formally recognised, there are numerous
examples that offer insight into such multispecies moral communities. Drawing on case study material from
the Tjilpa project that she is currently undertaking as a member of the Extinction Studies Working Group
(www.extinctionstudies.org), Rose introduced an Australian Indigenous perspective, within which adaptation
necessarily encompasses not only the wellbeing of human community members, but also that of non-human
flora and fauna, which are traditionally considered as kin, as is the Tjilpa (native cat or Western quoll) for
several Central Australian peoples. In addition, Rose demonstrated that bio-inclusive moral communities can
also be found among non-Indigenous Australians, such as those who are working to rescue, rehabilitate and
release grey headed and spectacled flying foxes, two species of giant fruit bats that are currently threatened
with extinction. Rose argued that in a world of connectivity and mutually embedded vulnerabilities,
adaptation should be understood as a multi-species project.
Our final presenter, Professor Freya Mathews (La Trobe University), offered a perspective from a similarly
bio-inclusive ethic. Mathews argued that such an ethic is currently largely missing from environmental
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|8
discourse because it is widely assumed that “saving the biosphere” is a necessary condition for saving
humanity anyway: if the ship of nature goes down we humans go down with it. Therefore we might just as
well argue from the anthropocentric premise rather than introducing a separate ethic for nature. But Mathews
suggested that this assumption – that if the ship goes down, we go down with it – might no longer be justified:
it is becoming conceivable that artificial systems might one day be manufactured that would mimic current
biosystem services, thereby rendering most of Earth’s existing biosphere irrelevant to the sustainability of
human civilization. In light of this, the argument to save the biosphere needs to be couched in explicitly ecoethical rather than merely instrumental terms. Mathews noted that to the extent that a bio-inclusive ethic is
current in environmental discourse at all, it is an ethic of biodiversity: biodiversity is an acknowledged value
in scientific and policy discourse. But, she argued, an ethic of biodiversity will not save the biosphere. We
cannot wait till all species are at risk before making moves to save them. This would be a recipe for
wholesale ecological attrition. In addition to biodiversity, we need a concept of bio-proportionality, which
would aim for ecologically optimal, rather than residual, populations for all species. The principle of
proportionality would apply as much to the human species as to other species.
In the discussion following the formal presentations, Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black (founding President of
GreenFaith Australia), also pointed to the role of Australia’s diverse religious traditions and communities in
framing moral understandings and inspiring practical action to redress environmental destruction and
respond to the impacts of climate change, as well as sustaining hope for the future in the face of an
increasingly grim outlook. In this context, he referred to the work of such multi-faith organisations as
GreenFaith Australia and the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change.
Recommendations and actions
• Further conceptual thinking to develop ethical frameworks for adaptation policy, taking into account both
social and inter-species justice perspectives;
•
Incorporation of consideration of cultural differences, including traditional knowledge and religious
understandings, in framing ethical perspectives on adaptation;
•
Adaptation policy should recognise and foster the existence of multi-species or bio-inclusive moral
communities;
•
Further sociological research to map vulnerability to particular climate change impacts in relation to
various forms of human social deprivation;
•
Further ecological research to map the vulnerability to climate change impacts of flora and fauna in
relation to other environmental stressors;
•
Analysis of the social justice and ecological implications of emerging responses to the increasing
frequency and intensity of extremes;
•
Development of strategies, structures and programs to assist the most vulnerable with a view to
ameliorating rather than aggravating existing inequities;
•
Further examination of the questions raised by the concept of bio-proportionality, in particular the
necessity of considering the limitation of human population in relation to optimising the adaptive capacity
of all populations of living entities;
•
Facilitation of better communication between academic researchers and policy makers;
•
Creation of an environmental ethics centre or institute to bring leading edge thinking on bio-inclusion
more directly into the mainstream of climate change and sustainability research, public discussion and
policy development.
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|9
Psychology and Behaviour Change Session
Drawing on contemporary research and practice from psychology, behavioural economics and social
marketing, this session discussed how personal values influence our everyday decisions, and how this
knowledge can be used when developing interventions to change behaviour.
Convenors: Dr Liam Smith & Dr Jim Curtis (BehaviourWorks Australia)
Speakers:
Liam Smith (BehaviourWorks Australia)
Lata Gangadharan (Depart of Economics, Monash University)
Bill Shannon (The Shannon Company)
During the opening session of the Workshop on Valuing Adaptation, Blair Comley from the Department of
Climate Change and Energy Efficiency described three reasons why people might “disagree” in relation to
climate change adaptation behaviours. These were different value judgements on the costs and benefits of
climate change adaptation, different subjective judgements of facts, and errors in logic. The first two reasons
in particular suggest that how people assess adaptation behaviours does not typically involve an objective
weighing up of the costs and benefits of performing a behaviour, which is what traditional economic
rationalist models suggest. Yet, the approaches typically taken by governments and other institutions to
promote climate change adaptation (e.g., economic incentives, accurate information) are often based on the
assumption that people are largely “rational” beings and objectively consider the overall economic and
environmental “value” of climate change adaptation.
As Dr Liam Smith explained, in the fields of psychology, behavioural economics and social marketing,
“values” and how they influence behaviour take on a different meaning compared to economic rationalist
models of behaviour. According to Schwartz (1992), values represent desirable trans-situational goals that
vary in importance and serve as guiding principles in the lives of individuals across a range of different
situations. Based on this definition, values influence our choices (and how we might attend to information)
through the attractiveness of certain outcomes that are relevant to particular values (e.g., friendship, healthy
living, justice, wealth creation). But just because a person values “protecting the environment” (which is one
of 56 individual values identified in Schwartz’s (1992) theory of basic human values), this does not mean
they will act in a pro-environmental way. This leads to a second critical factor for understanding how values
impact on behaviour. That is, knowing how important a value is compared to other values is key, because
when competing values are activated in a situation, choices are based on the value that is considered the
most important in that moment. Thus, while some of the 56 individual values that Schwartz (1992) identified
across a range of cultures and societies share certain social and psychological compatibilities, others do not.
This leads to instances where we might think people are acting “irrationally” or inconsistently, or to
disagreements between people who hold similar values but where the values are ascribed different levels of
importance.
The fact that competing values might lead to sub-optimal economic decisions is readily apparent in
behavioural economics, as Professor Lata Gangadharan explained. Within this field, numerous studies
have shown that rational economic theories do not fully predict behaviour. Instead, a range of decisionmaking biases related to defaults, heuristics (“rules of thumb”), loss aversion, framing, confirmation
tendencies, norms etc. can all lead to us making what might seem “irrational” decisions through a traditional
economic lens (Dolan et al., 2012; Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). A study by Mellström and Johannesson (2008)
is one example highlighting such so-called irrationality, as the authors showed that under particular
conditions the offer of financial incentives for blood donation actually led to a decline in blood donation, as
such incentives had a “crowding out” impact on certain intrinsic (and moral) motives underlying the behaviour.
This and many other similar studies emphasise that we might not always make decisions that are in our best
financial interests, yet the assumption that we do continues to dominate many attempts to influence
behaviour, including climate change adaptation.
While psychology can give us insights into conflicting values, and behavioural economics can demonstrate a
range of decision-making biases that we can potentially take advantage of, there is still the matter of whether
people are indeed “ready to change”. To this end, Bill Shannon described how social marketing approaches
can be used to “sensitise the community” to the importance of climate change adaptation before a call for
action or change is introduced. Without such formative efforts, there is a real danger that proposed changes
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|10
are either not embraced by the public or are rejected outright. The climate change and carbon price debates
that have occurred in Australia in recent years suggests that some form of strategic public engagement
strategy, which took into account a range of values, decision-making biases, as well as emotional
connections and aspirations related to the issue, could have served in building a “moral justification” for the
Government to act on climate change (the reality is that the Opposition did a better job in sensitising the
community to oppose the carbon price based on framing it as a tax). Given that the impacts of climate
change remain intangible for many sectors of the Australian public, we cannot always assume that the
argument for climate change adaptation can be solely based on measurable economic self-interest, and may
instead rely on tapping into other value directions that hold great decision-making traction within the
community.
So, if we return to Blair Comley’s original comments why people disagree, can the fields of psychology,
behavioural economics and social marketing suggest ways of achieving more instances of agreement when
it comes to climate change adaptation? We believe “yes”. Essentially, we need to move beyond interventions
that place too much emphasis that people will act solely in their own economic self-interests and will do the
right thing once they have accurate information on the issue. We know that this is simply not the case.
Instead, by being aware that people will “value” adaptation based on different basic human values and
decision-making biases, and then using this knowledge to build formative social marketing campaigns to
prepare the community for change or action, this might go some ways towards fostering greater agreement
on climate change adaptation behaviours.
References
Dolan, P., Hallsworth, M., Halpern, D., King, D., Metcalfe, R., & Vlaev, I. (2012). Influencing behaviour: The
mindspace way. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33(1), 264-277.
Mellström, C., & Johannesson, M. (2008). Crowding out in blood donation: Was Titmuss right? Journal of the
European Economic Association, 6(4), 845-863.
Schwartz, D. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theory and empirical tests in 20
countries. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1-65). New
York: Academic Press.
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness.
New Haven: Yale University Press.
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|11
Politics Session
This session explored public opinion on climate adaptation and public perceptions of risk and how they may
differ from expert opinion. It also looked at how public opinion, the media and the perceptions and values of
politicians influence the political valuation of climate adaptation.
Convenor: Professor John Thwaites (Monash University)
Speakers:
Professor John Thwaites (Monash University)
Professor Brian Head (University of Queensland)
Associate Professor Philip Chubb (Monash University)
Public opinion and perception of risks play a key role in determining the political response to climate change.
Public perceptions of risk may be influenced by the media and by cultural and psychological factors. Some
media organizations run very strong campaigns directed at influencing public opinion on climate change in a
particular way. Perceptions may also be influenced by recent significant or traumatic events such as floods
or bushfires.
Public opinion as to the value of climate adaptation may vary from expert opinion and from economic cost
benefit analysis. Political orientation and affiliation appears to be a strong predictor of climate change beliefs.
Professor John Thwaites looked at climate adaptation from a framework of risk mitigation and used
building regulation as a case study of the interaction between climate adaptation and the political process.
Major impacts of climate change on buildings include heatwaves, more intense cyclones, sea-level rise and
bushfires. Building regulations cover some of these hazards, but must satisfy an economic cost-benefit
analysis. The discount rate, normally 7%, is a significant hurdle for building regulation and, in a number of
instances, building regulations to protect against climate hazards have not been introduced until after a
major disaster.
The public over-estimates the risk of certain hazards that are dramatic and in the media – such as fire and
drowning – and under-estimates less-reported incidents like injury from falls. Some argue that government
action such as regulation should be guided only by the rational weighting of costs and benefits as calculated
by experts – say the dollar costs to the economy against the lives or life years saved. However strict
economic cost benefit analysis may not sufficiently incorporate public values that should inform regulation in
a democracy.
Professor Thwaites concluded by examining some of the opinion polling on climate change and adaptation.
This shows a softening in concern about climate change since 2007 and a weakening in support for strong
action. It also shows a strong difference in views based on party affiliation with Green and Labor supporters
much more likely to support climate change action than Coalition supporters.
Professor Brian Head outlined some of the research into public opinion on climate change and described in
detail some research he participated in on the attitude of politicians to climate change.
Professor Head pointed out that climate change is a highly politicized debate and this makes a real
difference in how the relevant science is viewed by the public and mobilized by the conflicting parties. The
public understanding of the background science is weak and patchy. Citizens who report direct experience of
extreme weather are more likely to interpret these as symptoms or evidence of climate change.
A survey of the climate change beliefs of Federal, State and local politicians demonstrated a significant
partisan divide with Greens and Labor politicians having much stronger belief in the need for action than
Liberal/National politicians. Politicians perceived that they had stronger belief in action than the electorate
but demonstrated a lack of knowledge about specific issues relating to climate change.
Associate Professor Philip Chubb gave a sobering presentation on the considerable power of the media in
presenting climate stories.
He described the way in which The Australian newspaper presented the story of the Black Saturday
bushfires in Victoria on 7 February 2009. The Australian mounted a one-sided campaign that opposed any
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|12
link between climate change and the bushfires and argued that the main culprit was the “Green movement”
who opposed bushfire prevention and fuel reduction burning. Opinion pieces and articles were dominated by
climate change sceptics and extensively quoted members of the Stretton Group who supported widespread
clearing of trees.
An analysis of 49 articles in the Australian concerning bushfires and fuel-reduction burning by Associate
Professor Chubb demonstrates that only 327 words out of 35,496 quoted fire experts saying that fuel
reduction would have made no or little difference to the Black Saturday fires because of the extreme weather
conditions (despite this being the preponderant expert view).
The influence of the Australian stories could be seen in the change to the regulation governing tree clearing
in Nillumbik to allow clearing without a permit of trees within 10 metres of a house and other vegetation
within 30 metres. There is evidence that this regulation has been misused by developers to clear vegetation
for development purposes.
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|13
Wellbeing Session
The value of adaptation for wellbeing and health is both an ethical social justice issue as well as a pragmatic
economic necessity. The social and economic costs of a failure to adapt are likely be high in terms of
diminished health, loss of productivity, lower social inclusion and social cohesion, as well as a less stable
society.
Facilitators: Dr Janet Stanley & Dr Marion Carey (Monash University)
Speakers:
Dr Janet Stanley (Monash University))
Professor Colin Butler (University of Canberra)
Professor John Stanley (University of Sydney)
The social justice perspective of adaptation comes from a belief that everyone should be given equal
capabilities to adapt to climate change. If this fails to occur, there will be a group of people who will have
difficulties adjusting. These people include those already struggling with disadvantage and social exclusion,
and those who are just managing to cope but where adverse events associated with climate change may
reduce their ability to recover from further setbacks. Depending on the climate change impact, this could be
in the order of over a quarter of the population. Without a social justice approach there is a risk that there will
develop an increasingly inequitable society with the outcome that the quality of life for everyone will be
diminished. This will be in terms of the need for improved safety provisions and the moral difficulties of living
with a more obviously divided society.
Social value is an externality not usually included in an economic approach to understanding the worthiness
of a project. This is in part due to the fact that the traditional economic approach regards social and
environmental issues as outside the assessment of the viability of the project. It is also in part due to the
complexity of obtaining a consistent approach to understanding and measuring social variables and the
essential elements needed for human wellbeing. There has been some movement to measure key social
variables and place an economic return on the presence of these variables, such as connection to the
community. Such figures can be included in an assessment of a comprehensive value of adaptation, one
which includes environmental, social and economic outcomes.
While people generally value good health, these values are not always reflected in action and economic
choices. Successful adaptation to climate change has the potential to reduce deaths and illness from
extreme weather and from more indirect climate change impacts. Some adaptation measures will be
consistent with mitigation (such as greening of cities and reducing urban air pollution to reduce heat health
impacts) but others may come in conflict with mitigation measures (e.g. increased use of air conditioning). As
vulnerable groups are likely to be disproportionally affected by climate change, how we value equity in health
may influence our adaptation responses.
In an economic sense it is the cost of not adapting that seems to be the critical question. We can choose not
to adapt if we wish but we need to accept the cost and the rising cost the later the decisions to adapt are
made. The cost may be in monetary terms (e.g. cost of adapted buildings) or it may be the cost of benefits
forgone (e.g. loss of environmental quality or loss of social cohesion). It is these latter losses where value
comes in as people will view this loss differently and therefore be happy to pay more or less to keep these
benefits. This is where personal value enters. Clearly many politicians place personal value on keeping in
power and do what has to be done to stay in power – which is usually not planning for 25 years ahead. In
effect they would put a high present cost on many adaptation decisions, so don’t advocate for it. So,
adaptation is not what is valued, it is the consequences as a result of adapting or not adapting where the
personal and social costs and benefits need to be considered.
The wellbeing session raised and discussed these issues in order to gain a better understanding of the value
of adaptation to individuals, communities and society, and how such values can be better used to convey the
necessity of planning and policy to facilitate the adaptation process.
Dr Janet Stanley spoke of how people will always adapt to their circumstances but what we should be
striving for is positive adaptation which maintains or even promotes wellbeing. We now know a lot about
what people need to maintain their wellbeing: health, achieving in life, relationships, safety, communityconnectedness and security. It is an issue of social justice if people are unable to adapt to climate change in
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|14
a manner that maintains their wellbeing. There are particular groups of people who are at risk of social
exclusion who may well have problems adapting due to issues such as lack of financial and social resources
or poor policy. Recent work undertaken at MSI has shown that people who are homeless have many
difficulties adapting to climate change, and the agencies that commonly assist people who are homeless are
largely unprepared for extreme events such as flooding or heat. There is a risk that those who are struggling
will have disadvantage entrenched, while those who are just managing will be pushed to a level where they
find it difficult to cope. If attention isn’t given to this issue of social justice there is a risk that there will be a
breakdown in social cohesion and there will be a risk of conflict occurring.
Professor John Stanley spoke of how markets are commonly used by economists to manage the
distribution of resources. However, markets have been found to have shortcomings, particularly in relation to
the failure to take account of externalities – that is, the factors that don’t directly impact on the transaction,
such as road congestion and climate change where the costs are borne by others. Additionally, not all goods
are traded in markets, such as enjoyment of nature and participation in markets assumes that people have
the resources to do this.
Policy is needed as certain property is held in common such as roads or access to a resource is free such as
the atmosphere. To undertake good policy decisions where markets have failed, there is a need to
understand: What is to be valued? How is it to be valued? What are the trade-offs? Making these decisions
will involve both facts and trade-offs. Both individual preferences and social judgements will need to be made.
Decisions may be easier where the choices are put on a comparative basis, such as in dollars. A clear vision
or end point is needed, to understand the outcomes that are being shaped through policy.
A problem in achieving adaptation is that there remains little understanding of the value of social states. John
reported on work that is presently being undertaking on putting a monetary value on some social states, so a
better understanding can be achieved about the choices that need to be made in adaptation and the
consequences of these choices. For example, a unit increase in a person’s attachment to community is
worth $22,000 per annum.
Professor Colin Butler spoke about social needs and the interdependence between social needs and
ecological health. Avoidance of unpleasant thoughts is part of the problem of human denial around the need
to adapt to climate change. He spoke of the threats of climate change to the health and wellbeing of many of
the world’s poor who are both vulnerable and have few resources to recover from an extreme event. While
the green revolution has reduced world hunger, there are still many millions who are under-nourished.
Climate change and population growth is adding to the difficulties of dealing with world poverty. For example
the super typhoon in Bopha in 2012 resulted in over 900 people dead and over 700 missing. Disadvantage
can be cumulative, such as when a farmer loses his crop, he also loses his or her livelihood and house.
Humans become locked into existing technologies and cultures. Colin pointed out that the fossil fuels are
subsidized six times more than renewable energies. There are a lot of unrealistic ‘dreams’ around adaptation.
People talk about ‘dream’ crops, cooperation, technology and geoengineering. The reality is more likely to be
militarism, a fortress world and a weakening of asylum obligations. What is needed is mitigation to reduce
the worst impacts and education to reduce population. Also needed is stewardship, courage and hope, and
work to sensitise and inspire the community.
Future work
A piece of research coming from this might be on public choice and preferences (stated preference theory).
If we knew what people valued about aspects of their wellbeing, then we would know how to put a value on it
(probably monetary) so we know how much people are prepared to bear future costs in the present and how
to distribute the costs of adaptation.
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|15
Economics Session
This session explores economic approaches to valuation of adaptation. Topics include non-market valuation,
limitations of cost-benefit analysis, and decision analysis.
Convenor: Professor Michael Ward (Monash University)
Speakers:
Dr Paul Raschky (Monash University)
Dr Konar Mutafoglu (University of Queensland)
Professor Michael Ward (Monash University)
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is the traditional economic approach to decision making. However, climate
adaptation poses several challenges for CBA. The economics session examined several of these challenges
in turn, through three short presentations followed by an interactive panel discussion focused on questions
from workshop participants. Several common themes emerged throughout the discussion, especially with
regard to the difficulties posed by uncertainty. All three sessions emphasized bringing in new information
from other methodological approaches to extend the traditional economic approach to CBA.
The first presentation, by Dr Konar Mutafoglu of the University of Queensland Global Change Institute, set
the stage with a discussion of the challenges of CBA as applied to the so-called “wicked problem” of
adaptation to sea-level rise. The presentation set the stage by explaining the core steps of a CBA. These
include (1) identifying policy options, for example restrictions on building in areas which may be threatened
with flooding in 30 years time; (2) identifying the impacts of those options, such as higher housing costs, loss
of short-term enjoyment of coastal housing, and reduced risk to the future housing stock; and (3) placing a
present-dollar value figure on these various impacts, so that the associated costs and benefits can be
usefully compared.
While these basic mechanics of the CBA procedure are well-developed, the real challenge comes in making
it operational given high uncertainty, incomplete information, and potentially changing requirements as new
information arrives over time and new global mitigation and adaptation policies are negotiated. In the face of
such a complex problem, it is very difficult to lay out a CBA that will achieve wide-spread acceptance of its
validity, because there will be conflicting and contradictory views over each component of the analysis,
including the degree of uncertainty itself. Dr Mutafoglu proposed a research agenda focused on integrating
the core elements of CBA with community-based participatory decision-making. The premise of this proposal
is that community consensus can emerge through a facilitated discussion, with the CBA framework providing
a core focus on economic trade-offs.
The second presentation, by Dr Paul Raschky of the Monash University Department of Economics,
discussed the “life satisfaction” approach to non-market valuation, as applied to flooding adaptation in
Australia. This approach is a new and emerging methodology for economic valuation of environmental
impacts, which bypasses a number of difficulties with traditional approaches. The particular application
discussed was flash-flood risk, but the method is more generally applicable to a variety of impacts from
climate adaptation (or lack thereof).
Sound decision making over adaptation policy requires a sound estimate of the benefits. Yet, the two main
existing non-market valuation strategies applicable to climate adaptation have serious weaknesses. Property
value methods have high data requirements and rely on strict assumptions such as complete information by
consumers over flooding risk and stringent assumptions over market competitiveness. Stated preference
methods are expensive to implement and suffer from a host of potential biases stemming from the
hypothetical nature of the questions. A growing empirical literature demonstrates that self-reported life
satisfaction can provide the basis of an alternative valuation strategy. For example, if decrease in income of
$X leads on average to a decrease in life satisfaction of 1 unit on the specified measurement scale, then the
method proposes that a flooding incident leading to the same 1 unit average decrease in life satisfaction has
an average value of the same $X.
In many countries, including Australia, baseline data on life satisfaction is already collected through
nationally representative samples. So, implementing the method requires only a small investment over time
in new life-satisfaction data after an incident, such as flash-flooding, in the affected areas. Further, unlike
stated preference approaches, the technique asks each respondent to answer a very simple and nonWorkshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|16
hypothetical question about their own life. Raschky provided a detailed example of how to implement the
technique, based on actual data for Australian flooding.
The third presentation, by Professor Michael Ward of the Monash Sustainability Institute and the
Department of Economics, focused on CBA versus alternative frameworks, especially multi-criteria decision
analysis (MCDA), which are not explicitly grounded in economic logic. MCDA is nominally a more general
framework that allows non-economic factors to be easily considered. This raises the issue of where such
multi-criteria approaches differ from CBA and where they align, and which should be chosen when.
In CBA there are a number of value judgments that may differ from those in MCDA. A key element here is
that costs and benefits have to be aggregated over (a) people, (b) time, and (c) uncertain outcomes. Each of
these levels of aggregation embeds a ‘hidden’ value judgment. With respect to people, the standard
approach is to add up all costs and benefits equally, regardless of to whom they accrue and regardless of
considerations of inequality. For policies with major impacts on different groups of individuals, such as
climate change adaptation, this may be difficult to defend on traditional grounds such as win-some-losesome. With respect to time, exponential discounting based on a market rate is generally employed. Again,
this default aggregation is much more problematic for policies with features such as long run and
intergenerational impacts, low substitutability with physical capital, and long range uncertainty. Of course,
these are all features of climate change adaptation policies. The decision here is core, because under
modest exponential discounting, the future past a few decades has very little ‘value’. With respect to
uncertainty, aggregation over outcomes requires agreement on the probability distribution of outcomes,
which is often lacking in the “wicked problem” of climate change adaptation.
One of the benefits of alternative methods such as MCDA is that they are less rule-bound along these and
other dimensions. Thus, the MCDA framework allows for more flexibility and more community input into
tradeoffs. At the same time, this is the main weakness, since there will be a concern that the chosen tradeoff
ratios can be manipulated to favor and defend an already desired outcome by the decision maker. The
speaker closed by noting that CBA is simply a form of MCDA. So long as monetary cost is one of the
attributes in the MCDA, it can be translated into an “implicit” net monetary benefit simply by normalizing the
index on money cost to be negative one. Ward proposed that rather than being viewed as competing
frameworks, they should be complementary. Both CBA and MCDA should be conducted, and the results
should be placed on comparable footing by monetising the MCDA results. If the methods provide seriously
different conclusions, then that is the signal to go back and identify and defend the value judgments lead to
the divergence. The hope is that such a hybrid approach will combine the benefit of rigor and structure from
CBA with the benefit of flexibility in MCDA in producing sound evidence for climate adaptation policy-making.
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|17
Appendix 1: Workshop Program
Day 1: Tuesday 11 December 2012
8:30–9:00
Registration
9:00–10:30
Session 1: Opening
Convenor: Prof. Dave Griggs (Monash University)
Speakers:
Blair Comley (Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency)
Prof. Robert Costanza (Australian National University)
Dr Cassandra Goldie (Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS))
10:30–11:00
Morning Tea
11:00–12:30
Session 2: Governance
This interactive session will bring all workshop participants into conversation in order to
appreciate different perspectives on what valuing and valuation for adaptation means. The
session facilitators will introduce alternative framings of climate change adaptation and
present some governance models that invite different ways of valuing. Participants will then
design individual and table-based inquiries to take forward into the other workshop sessions.
Convenors: Dr Philip Wallis, (Monash University) Prof. Ray Ison (Monash University & Open
University) & Dr Anna Lukasiewicz (Charles Sturt University)
12:30–13:30
Lunch
13:30–15:00
Session 3: Ethics
This session will address the role of ethical considerations, concerning both social justice and
human ethical accountability towards nonhuman others, in valuing adaptation measures.
Convenor: Prof. Kate Rigby (Monash University)
Speakers:
Prof. Deborah Bird-Rose (Macquarie University)
Prof. Freya Mathews (La Trobe University)
Dr Kate Lonsdale (UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP))
15:00–15:30
Afternoon Tea
15:30–17:00
Session 4: Behaviour Change
Drawing on contemporary research and practice from psychology, behavioural economics
and social marketing, this session will discuss how personal values influence our everyday
decisions, and how this knowledge can be used when developing interventions to change
behaviour.
Convenors: Dr James Curtis & Dr Liam Smith (BehaviourWorks Australia)
Speakers:
Dr Liam Smith (BehaviourWorks Australia)
Bill Shannon (The Shannon Company)
Prof. Lata Gangadharan (Monash University)
17:00–19:00
Workshop reception
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|18
Day 2: Wednesday, 12 December 2012
9:00–10:30
Session 5: Politics
This session explores how public opinion, the media and the perceptions and values of
politicians influence the political valuation of climate adaptation.
Convenor: Prof. John Thwaites (Monash University)
Speakers:
Prof. John Thwaites (Monash University) – Public perception of risks and its influence over
building regulation aimed at climate adaptation.
Prof. Brian Head (University of Queensland) – The shift in public opinion over time. Attitudes
and values of politicians in relation to climate change.
Assoc. Prof. Philip Chubb (Monash University) – The influence of media reporting of
disasters
10:30–11:00
Morning Tea
11:00–12:30
Session 6: Wellbeing
The value of adaptation for wellbeing and health is both an ethical social justice issue as well
as a pragmatic economic necessity. The social and economic costs of a failure to adapt are
likely be high in terms of diminished health, loss of productivity, lower social inclusion and
social cohesion, as well as a less stable and society.
Convenors: Dr Janet Stanley & Assoc. Prof. Marion Carey (Monash University)
Speakers:
Dr Janet Stanley (Monash University)
Prof. Colin Butler (University of Canberra)
Prof. John Stanley (University of Sydney)
12:30–12:40
Prof. Kate Auty (Victorian Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability) – State of
the Environment 2013 Climate Change Foundation Paper
12:30–13:30
Lunch
13:30–15:00
Session 7: Economics
This session explores economic approaches to valuation of adaptation. Topics include nonmarket valuation, limitations of cost-benefit analysis, and decision analysis.
Convenor: Prof. Michael Ward (Monash University)
Speakers:
Dr Paul Raschky (Monash University) – A life satisfaction approach to natural disasters
Dr Konar Mutafoglu (University of Queensland) – Economics of sea-level adaptation: a
“wicked problem”
Prof. Michael Ward (Monash University) – Relating multi-criteria approaches of valuing
adaptation to Cost-Benefit Analysis
15:00–15:30
Afternoon Tea
15:30–16:30
Session 8: Closing
Convenors: Prof. Dave Griggs & Dr Philip Wallis (Monash University)
16:30
Close
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|19
Appendix 2: Participants
Belinda Allison
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
Prof. Kate Auty
Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability
Victoria
Dr Marcus Barber
CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences / NCCARF
Adaptation College
Prof. Jon Barnett
Resource Management and Geography
University of Melbourne
Prof. Deborah Bird-Rose
Macquarie University
Averil Bones
Australian Government Department of Climate
Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE)
Dr Alison Browne
Lancaster University / NCCARF Adaptation
College
Prof. Colin Butler
Faculty of Health
University of Canberra
Kim Byrnes
City of Rockingham / NCCARF Adaptation
College
A/Prof. Marion Carey
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
A/Prof. Philip Chubb
School of Journalism and Australian Studies,
Faculty of Arts
Monash University
Blair Comley
Australian Government Department of Climate
Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE)
Prof. Robert Costanza
Crawford School of Public Policy
Australian National University
Dr Jim Curtis
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
James Duggie
Climate Change Unit
WA Department of Environment and Conservation
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
Katie Eberle
Adaptation Policy, Domestic Adaptation Branch
Australian Government Department of Climate
Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE)
Prof. Lata Gangadhara
Department of Economics, Faculty of Business
and Economics
Monash University
Greg Garvin
Climateworks Australia
Dr Cassandra Goldie
Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS)
Prof. Dave Griggs
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
Ashley Hall
Victorian Government Department of
Sustainability and Environment (DSE)
Prof. John Handmer
Centre for Risk & Community Safety
RMIT University
Prof. Brian Head
Institute for Social Science Research
University of Queensland
Prof. Ray Ison
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
Anthony James
National Centre for Sustainability
Swinburne University
Prof. Roger Jones
Centre for Strategic Economic Studies
Victoria University
Dr Gunnar Jonsson
Department of Arts, Communication and
Education
Lulea University of Technology Sweden
Lena Jungbluth
BehaviourWorks Australia
Monash University
Adriana Keating
Centre for Risk & Community Safety
RMIT University
|20
Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black
Australian Religious Response to Climate Change
Dr Tahl Kestin
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
Sarah Kneebone
BehaviourWorks Australia
Monash University
Dr Kate Lonsdale
UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP)
Dr Anna Lukasiewicz
School of Environmental Sciences
Charles Sturt University
Gordana Marin
Office of the Commissioner for Environmental
Sustainability Victoria
Prof. Freya Mathews
La Trobe University
Carol McMillan
Victorian Government Department of
Sustainability and Environment (DSE)
Colette Mortreux
University of Melbourne
Dr Konar Mutafoglu
Global Change Institute
University of Queensland
Prof. Neville Nicholls
School of Geography & Environmental Science
Monash University
Prof. Jean Palutikof
National Climate Change Adaptation Research
Facility (NCCARF)
A/Prof. Phillip Payne
Faculty of Education
Monash University
Aedan Puleston
University of Melbourne
Dr Paul Raschky
Department of Economics
Monash University
Prof. Kate Rigby
School of English, Communications and
Performance Studies, Faculty of Arts
Monash University
Bill Shannon
The Shannon Company
Tina Soundias
Resource Management and Geography
University of Melbourne
Michael Spencer
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
Dr Janet Stanley
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
Prof. John Stanley
Business School
University of Sydney
Janina Tenace
The Shannon Company
Prof. John Thwaites
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
James Tonson
Understandascope
Sam Trowsdale
School of Environment
University of Auckland
Steve Waller
University of Melbourne
Dr Philip Wallis
Monash Sustainability Institute
Monash University
Prof. Michael Ward
Monash Sustainability Institute & Department of
Economics, Faculty of Business and Economics
Monash University
Louise Wilson
Adaptation Unit
Tasmanian Climate Change Office
Prof. John Wiseman
Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and
Melbourne School of Population Health
University of Melbourne
Kate Wood
Victorian Government Department of
Sustainability and Environment (DSE)
Celeste Young
Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation
Research (VCCCAR)
University of Melbourn
Dr Liam Smith
BehaviourWorks Australia
Monash University
Workshop on Valuing Adaptation – Workshop Report
|21