How Australia needs to adapt to face inevitable disruptions heading its way

By Anthony Bergin and Paul Barnes

Australia may be a land of sweeping plains and rugged mountains ranges, but it's increasingly a land of densely urbanised populations living on the coast. Our identity may be less well defined as our people travel to and from other lands and our economy becomes integrated into global markets.

We face different and significant challenges including managing border threats, such as pandemics and animal and plant diseases. We rely on international maritime and aviation based supply chains for a range of essential products.

We face more extreme weather events across our region as climate variability continues.

Research released this week by German-based Climate Analytics has given fresh insight into what global warming is likely to mean for Australians if it is not curbed.