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"Rural Australia" has long been a special site of political contestation. Staking the terms of public depictions of "the rural", "the bush", or "country life" is a constitutive thread running through Australian settler colonial identity and a cornerstone of national electoral politics. This paper analyses major News Corporation media outlets' presentation of an evolving political campaign, comparing contesting representations of farming and rural Australia deployed by the Morrison Coalition government and advocacy group Farmers for Climate Action, in the period between the government's re-election in May 2019 and July 2021. The paper steps through the key tactical discursive moves made by these contesting parties. It argues that in their depictions of rural Australia there are two important features that these perspectives share. Both embrace a discourse of increased agricultural productivity inspired by high-tech innovation, and both are silent on the related social and economic transformations that undergird the "crisis" of the rural. Consequently, public political contestation over rural policy unfolds without engaging transforming structural arrangements that fundamentally organise work and life on the land. • Presents comparative depictions of rurality by the Australian prime minister and advocacy group Farmers for Climate Action. • Political contests over the representation of the rural during the time of accelerating climate change are shown to have strong temporal framings. • Both government and Farmers for Climate Action embrace a discourse of increased agricultural productivity inspired by high-tech innovation and both are silent on socio-economic transformations. • Farmers for Climate Action have made significant steps towards normalising the idea that farming and climate activism go hand in hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change poses both immediate and anticipated challenges. With growing awareness of climate change and much of their life courses ahead, young people are distinctively positioned to experience anticipated challenges. This article reports the findings of a survey conducted among 1943 young people (15 – 19 years) living across Australia. The survey examined respondents' knowledge, perceptions, and emotional experiences of climate change, and how these factors influence their views and decision-making regarding the future. Quantitative analysis indicates higher concern and impactful feelings about climate change, as well as personal proximity to climate change and taking climate action, were the most important predictors for how respondents made choices about their lives, and their outlook on the future. Through, qualitative analysis of open-ended five key themes emerged in respondents' perceptions of climate futures: preparing for uncertainty, dependent on the powerful, disconnected from climate change, running out of time, and grieving a dead future. Overall, findings suggest climate change is a significant influence on how young people think about and make choices about their lives and the future. The present impacts of anticipated climate change in the lives of young people need greater recognition in research, policy and public discussion about climate change. • Reports the findings of a national survey of 1943 young people aged 15 – 19 years living across Australia. • Examined knowledge, perceptions, and emotional experiences of climate change, and the future. • Climate change is a significant influence on how young people think and make choices about their lives and futures. • The impacts of anticipated climate change in young peoples' lives needs greater recognition in research, policy and public discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Results of a large national Australian survey of young people (15–19 years) • High concern, worry, powerlessness, and frustration about climate change. • Respondents most commonly talked to friends about climate change feelings. • Feeling listened to predicted talking about climate change feelings. • Differences in emotions when talking to different generations were evident. • Young people need respect, opportunities to act, and shared understanding. The emotional significance of climate change for young people is becoming recognised. However, their experiences of talking about these feelings are not well understood, despite being acknowledged as an important avenue for support and social change. This article reports on a survey of 1,943 young people aged 15–19 years living in Australia. The survey examined their level of concern about climate change, the feelings they associate with climate change, whom they talk to about these feelings, under what conditions, and with what effects. Respondents reported a high level of concern about climate change, most associated with feelings of worry, powerlessness, and frustration. Friends were most trusted to share these feelings with, followed by parents/guardians and then teachers. The most important predictor of young people talking about their climate feelings was whether they felt listened to. Respondents were more likely to feel comfortable having climate conversations with younger or same-aged people and associated these conversations with hope. In contrast, climate conversations with older people were most often associated with betrayal, uncertainty, and worry. Through open-ended responses, the young people surveyed called for further respect and consideration of their views, opportunities to drive action and lead climate conversations, and a need for shared understanding of the issues at stake. Our findings highlight opportunities for those who care about and interact with young people to help them come to terms with the challenges of living in a changing climate through listening and creating safe spaces for what can be difficult discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Transformative change is needed in landscape practice to enhance its climate agency. • Little is known about the barriers and facilitators of designing for climate change. • Insights from Australian practitioners highlight lack of agency as a key barrier. • Transformation in structures and systems of decision-making processes is needed. • Improved advocacy, engaging with policy and collaboration advance designers' agency. The way we plan and design our landscapes, infrastructure, and cities has to transform if we want to meet the needs of our society and address climate change without breaching the earth's ecological boundaries. Landscape architects are known as environmental stewards. They are trained to create a balance between the built and natural environments. However, landscape architects' agency to lead climate change actions is restricted. Little is known about the barriers to addressing climate change in landscape architectural practice, and the levers to increase landscape architects' agency in climate change leadership. This paper addresses this gap through an in-depth empirical analysis of barriers and facilitators of climate change action from the perspective of landscape architecture professionals. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 practitioners from Australia. The results show that those interviewed perceived the profession had limited agency and influence in leading climate decisions. Other barriers exist and are grouped against the three spheres of transformation: 1) design implementation barriers influencing the built outcomes (practical); 2) structures and systems barriers influencing the design decision-making processes (political); and 3) socio-cultural barriers including values, ideologies, and beliefs (personal). The most restricting barriers that emerged were those related to limited project budget and timeframes, informational and technological aspects (access to reliable data, tools, and skillsets), as well as those related to political systems and structures in place (regulations, and design standards). Key facilitators to address existing barriers are identified, including creating awareness through practice and advocacy, active involvement of professionals in all life stages of projects, especially in planning and policy creation, and closer collaborations with other built environment sectors beyond sub-consultancy. The findings can pave the way towards increased agency and impact of the profession to bring climate change agendas to the forefront of landscape design practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Estimates of the time of emergence of climate change (ToE) for Australian rivers. • Stochastic data generation helps to better define baseline variability. • Uncertainty in ToE represented by 37 CMIP6 projections and 3 emissions scenarios. • ToE in river flows can precede ToE in precipitation by up to 50 years. • ToE substantially delayed or avoided in a low emissions pathway (SSP1-2.6). Climate change impacts on river flows are leading to substantial changes in water availability for human and natural systems. The significance of these impacts largely depends on the degree of change relative to natural variability. The 'Time of Emergence' (ToE) is the point in time (past or future) when the signal of climate change emerges from the noise of background variability. The ToE has been assessed for some climate variables but rarely streamflows. Here we investigate ToE of changes in streamflow across Australia for various characteristic periods relevant to different water management objectives. We assess the uncertainty in ToE estimates from different emissions pathways and a large ensemble of CMIP6 climate model projections. ToE is likely to occur earlier in hydrologic systems subject to low natural variability than those subject to high variability, and to systems that are vulnerable to failure over longer rather than shorter periods. There are clear regional differences in the patterns of ToE, with changes first emerging in south-west regions of Australia, followed by the south-east, then east and north. We estimate that ToE has already occurred in over 10% of sampled rivers for longer characteristic periods, primarily in south-west Australia. Importantly for planning, the results show that ToE in flows precedes ToE in precipitation by up to 50 years due to compounding effects of changes in annual precipitation, precipitation seasonality, and increasing temperatures. The number of catchments projected to have reached ToE by 2080 is heavily influenced by the trajectory of future emissions. A low emissions pathway generally consistent with aspirational goals of the Paris Climate Agreement (SSP1-2.6) substantially delays the emergence of significant hydrological change by up to 50 years, or negates emergence entirely by 2080, depending on location. Our methods can be applied to catchments globally, and our findings have implications for the prioritisation of climate adaptation efforts across different river systems and the urgency of continued action on climate change mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background In Australia, co-benefits have rarely entered policy discourse and have so far failed to gain traction in climate change-related policy debates. This is partly due to the dominant perception about the difficulties associated with identifying, quantifying and incorporating co-benefits into decision-making frameworks. There is also limited understanding on the part of policy-makers about the profound policy implications of a ‘co-benefits approach’ as a paradigm that can address multiple policy goals, including addressing climate change impacts, achieving sustainable development, and enhancing health, wellbeing and liveability. Objectives Our paper addresses this gap by contributing to current understandings of the ‘co-benefits approach’ as a means of integrating climate concerns into local planning and development control in general. At a more specific level, the paper provides an insight into the Australian local government policy context to illustrate how to plan, generate and purposively promote co-benefits in planning urban built environments. Methods A desktop review of NSW councils’ web sites and their climate change-related policies was undertaken. A comprehensive online survey was subsequently conducted to investigate the extent to which councils have adopted a ‘co-benefits approach’ in their low carbon policies. Results Major barriers to integrating co-benefits in the policy process were identified in this research. They include: (i) local government's current practice of single-sectoral policy development; (ii) absence of an integrated and co-ordinated ‘whole-of-government approach’ to address climate change impact; (iii) over-reliance on quantitative decision-support frameworks; and (iv) over-emphasis on short term and readily quantifiable monetary consideration of benefits. Conclusion Local government's over-emphasis on readily quantifiable ‘monetary considerations’ in targeting benefits from climate change policies excludes a wide range of environmental, social and health benefits from incorporation in policy. This limits the achievement of optimal policy outcomes across multiple sectors using a co-benefits approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Forests can shift to alternate states where regeneration fails post-disturbance. • Empirical experiments can help to quantify alternate states in forests. • Acacia woodland replaces ash-type eucalypt forest where regeneration fails. • Transition to alternate states can compromise the functional integrity of forests. • Management changes and intervention must mitigate the risk of regeneration failure. Under the current trajectory of accelerated climatic and environmental change, many forests are at risk of regeneration failure and subsequent transition to alternate stable states including non-forests or grassland. These regimes shifts can have severe ecological impacts and compromise carbon stores, undermine climate change mitigation, and create conditions incompatible with the survival of biodiversity. However, detailed empirical-based understanding of the alternative states associated with disturbance regime shifts is limited. Here, using a manipulative experiment, and controlling for seed application, we document temporal patterns of vegetation structure and composition associated with regeneration failure after clearcut logging in the ash-type eucalypt forests in south-eastern Australia. Our findings clearly demonstrate that in the absence of direct seed input, frequent stand-replacing disturbance can result in regeneration failure in these forests leading to them being replaced by low species diversity Acacia woodland. These insights can be extrapolated to scenarios of post-fire regeneration failure, where frequent fire precludes the development of adequate seed-stores (<21 years). Such shifts to alternative stable states can have severe ecological implications which require management intervention to circumvent and conserve the functional integrity of these forests. Our case study demonstrates the value of manipulative empirical experiments in quantifying the potential aftermath of forest regeneration failure. Such experiments may be useful to support theories and models in quantifying the ecological implications of regeneration failure, and to guide the application of management interventions for restoration where empirical-based knowledge of these states is limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farming systems face dual pressures of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mitigate climate change and safeguarding food security to adapt to climate change. Building soil organic carbon (SOC) is proposed as a key strategy for climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, practices that increase SOC may also increase nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions, and impact crop yields and on-farm income. A comprehensive assessment of the effects of different management practices on trade-offs between GHG emissions and agricultural systems profitability under climate change is needed. We aimed to: (1) analyze the long-term trends of SOC and N 2 O emissions, and ascertain whether the croplands of the study region are net GHG sources or sinks under climate change; (2) quantify the GHG abatement on a gross margin basis; (3) identify effective management practices that could achieve a win-win strategy; and (4) investigate sources of uncertainty in estimates of GHG emissions and gross margins under climate change. APSIM was used to simulate the effects of three crop residue retention rates (10%, 50% and 100%), and six representative crop rotations (wheat-canola, wheat-field pea-wheat-canola, wheat-field pea-wheat-oats, wheat-wheat-barley, wheat-wheat-canola, and wheat-wheat-oats) under two Shared Socio-economic Pathways scenarios (SSP245 and SSP585) using climate projections from 27 GCMs. GHG emissions and gross margins from 1961 to 2092 were assessed across 204 study sites in southeastern Australia. Our results showed that residue retention can turn the soil from a carbon source (10% retention, 304–450 kg CO 2 -eq ha−1 yr−1) to a carbon sink (100% retention, −269 ∼ −57 kg CO 2 -eq ha−1 yr−1), and the potential of carbon sequestration was partly offset by concomitantly increased N 2 O emissions. The wheat-wheat-canola rotation with full residue retention was shown to be a win-win solution with both large potential of GHG abatement and high gross margin compared with other rotations. Spatial analysis showed that the southeastern part of the study region, with higher rainfall, had higher gross margins, while the drier northwestern part had greater GHG emission reduction potentials. Although climate change led to increased GHG emissions and decreased yields for some crops, these adverse effects were overweighed by the higher SOC and yield advantages from full residue retention. This study emphasizes the significant potential for agronomic management to maximize gross margin and reduce GHG emissions under climate change in southeast Australia. Results from this study could be used by farmers and policymakers to mitigate climate change without compromising agroecosystem profitability. [Display omitted] • APSIM was used to simulate the effects of residue retention and crop rotation on GHG emissions and gross margins. • Retaining all crop residues could turn the soil from a carbon source to a carbon sink, and benefit gross margins. • Enhancement of residue retention on GHG abatement overweighed adverse effects of climate change under SSP245 and SSP585. • The wheat-wheat-canola rotation was the most beneficial in terms of GHG mitigation and profitability compared with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities must transform in order to address the challenge of climate change and to achieve societal ambitions such as the sustainable development goals. However, a key impediment to achieving transformation is underdeveloped understandings of how key actors and sectors within the built environment work together to achieve goals. This paper addresses these gaps by developing and visually presenting a process map to describe: the key processes involved in producing the built environment across its life stages; key sectors of the built environment, their key actors, and the activities coordinated between them. The process map was peer reviewed by an expert reference group of built environment professionals active in Australia and the UK. The motivation for developing this process map is to facilitate future research to identify and expedite opportunities for coordinated action to address significant societal challenges such as climate change action, and the sustainable development goals – which require transformative action in cities. • Cities must transform to address climate change • We develop a process map to describe the production of the built environment • Process map describes fundamental activities for producing the built environment • Process map spans built environment life stages; identifying activities and interactions of key sectors and actors • Can be applied to inform transformative action targeted at challenges such as climate change [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• MLR and RF were used to estimate current SOC stocks in south-eastern Australia. • Rainfall and minimum temperature were major drivers in determining SOC stocks. • The multi-GCM ensemble means suggested an overall decrease in SOC stocks. • The largest mean decrease of SOC stocks occurs in the high-rainfall alpine regions. Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a key role in the sequestration of carbon that could otherwise be warming the atmosphere. Climate change including increased temperature and changed rainfall will greatly impact the global SOC cycle. There are still significant gaps in our knowledge of the size of the global SOC pool and how future climate will affect SOC stocks and flows in many parts of the world, including Australia. In this study, we used SOC data in a Digital Soil Mapping framework to predict current and future SOC stocks across the state of New South Wales (NSW) in south-eastern Australia. In the first phase of the study we estimated the current SOC stock using multiple linear regression (MLR) and random forest (RF) modelling, and in the second phase we projected the change of SOC stocks in the near future (2050s) and far future (2090s) under two Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios based on 25 global climate models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). Our spatial modelling showed that estimated current SOC stocks in NSW decreased from east to west. Multi-GCM ensemble means suggested SOC stocks would decrease by 7.6–12.9% under SSP2-4.5 and 9.1–20.9% under SSP5-8.5 across NSW under future climate. The extent of change in SOC stocks varied spatially with the largest mean decrease of SOC stocks occurring in the North Coast and South East (alpine) regions of NSW. Our findings can support decision-making in land management and climate change mitigation strategies in NSW at the regional level. Furthermore, the modelling methods can be applied to other areas where edaphic and landscape properties, land use, and climate data are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Public scepticism surrounding climate change is an obstacle for implementing climate change mitigation measures in many countries. However, very little is known about: (1) the nature and sources of climate change scepticism; and (2) its influence on preferences for climate change mitigation policies. In this paper, we investigate these two issues using evidence and analysis from an Australian public survey and choice experiment. The study has three key findings. First, the intensity of scepticism varies depending on its type; we observed little scepticism over the cause, trend and impact of climate change and widespread scepticism over the effectiveness of mitigation measures and global co-operation. Second, cause and mitigation scepticism play significant roles in determining public support for climate change abatement. Respondents who believed in human-induced climate change were significantly more supportive of mitigation. Likewise, respondents who believed that mitigation would be successful in slowing down climate change were significantly more likely to be supportive. Third, the general public tend to give the benefit of the doubt to supporting mitigation. Those who expressed higher uncertainty about climate outcomes were more supportive of mitigation than others with similar expectations but lower uncertainty. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]