How resilient are you to the effects of a changing climate – including more frequent and intense heatwaves, droughts, storms and bushfires? As the impacts of climate change intensify, it is critical to monitor whether people are managing to maintain – or ideally grow – their resilience to these events. Resilience here means the ability of a person, household or community to successfully adapt to cope, adapt and transform their lives in ways that enable them to maintain a good quality of life despite challenges. In the Australian Capital Territory, the ACT Government has partnered with researchers at the Centre for Environmental Governance to track how the resilience of Canberrans is changing over time. The most recent report, released in early 2025, has found that resilience of Canberrans to climate change declined slightly between 2018 and 2023. However, this wasn’t because of a decline in preparedness for emergencies such as fires – in fact, preparedness increased. It was due to the impacts of COVID-19 on social connection (which reduced access to social support, a critical component of resilience), and the rapid rise in cost of living (which reduced financial resilience of many households). The findings highlight that building resilience to climate change requires understanding not only people’s preparation for specific events such as heatwaves, drought or storms, but also how the broader systems they are living in are changing, and how these changes are affecting their ability to live well with climate change.

To find out more about the project, please contact Jacki Schirmer (jacki.schirmer@canberra.edu.au)