Saturday 14 November 2009

Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coasts - report nobbled by department?


Screenshot which came up with any attempt to read Chapter 5

Like many other Australians today, I went to the Federal Department of Climate Change website to download the latest report Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coasts announced with some fanfare earlier in the day.

Small problem. The very chapter of intense interest; Chapter 5 identifies the key risks to built infrastructure with a particular focus on residential buildings at state and local government scales. Risks to infrastructure, services and industries in the coastal zone are also summarised according to the relevant web page - well it has gone missing.

Departmental IT ineptitude or a sudden realisation that many people could for the first time fairly accurately assess the risk to their property values and that might be politically just a tad too uncomfortable for the states and local government?

Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong much earlier in the day speaking on the ABC Radio AM program:

Over to you, Minister Wong.......

2 comments:

Dave Bath said...

Just got it broken up into a number of pdfs from the main page link you gave.

If you have the old link address, email me (you know where!) if you don' know how to use the google cache to get it and I'll try.

And why they don't provide it in HTML (to keep the human rights commissioner happy - not even a note on how to get an accessible version for the physically impaired) eludes me.

Now, if the "what the government doing" pages had gone AWOL or blank, that would be understandable, as well as an accurate and concise assessment!

clarencegirl said...

Dave,
Thanks for letting me know that the link was working now.
Have successfully downloaded NSW info and found that the NSW North Coast is predicted to lose at least 2,000 coastal residential buildings in the worst case scenario.