We are learning!
Navigating risks and building adaptive capacity.
We held a first Learning Exchange on Doing climate change risk assessments well, in November 2025, and we enjoyed hearing about the rich perspectives shared throughout the panel and breakout conversations; where we explored people’s experiences, practical challenges and what’s worked well. Thank you to all those who participated in the webinar and shared their insights. Thank you in particular to our panellists: Ella Reeks from Climate in Mind; Bart Kellett from NSW Government; Candace Jordan from the City of Melbourne and Lisa Ehrenfried from Yarra Valley Water.
If you wanted to be part of the Learning Exchange but could not make it, you can check out the webinar recording:
Key Messages
Climate risk assessments are path-defining, with analytical, practical and ethical complexities that shape adaptation outcomes.
There’s no single right approach: climate change adaptation is most effective as an evolving, collaborative process.
Data gaps create blind spots, including intersecting hazards, delayed recovery, and cascading system impacts.
In-house assessments (potentially guided by external experts) can not only identify risks but build capability, align with priorities, secure internal support and enable deeper learning.
Futures-focused approaches (e.g. scenarios, pathways, narratives) help navigate uncertainty and translate insights into action.
Current experience
We heard that organisations are progressing through climate change risk assessments in varied ways, increasingly shifting from consultant-led work to in-house or hybrid approaches. While technical tools and modelling are widely used, they often miss local knowledge, lived experience, and organisational nuance. Risk thinking is broadening across health, assets, transport, ecosystems, and community infrastructure, yet teams continue to grapple with uncertainty, siloed ways of working, limited data and the challenge of turning assessments into clear, actionable outcomes.
Practical challenges
Across organisations, cultural and structural barriers remain; ranging from reluctance to confront loss or long-term uncertainty to limited internal capacity and misaligned processes. Technical information is hard to navigate, datasets are inconsistent, and there is no single agreed methodology to follow. Teams also face the complexity of cumulative impacts, competing priorities, and the difficulty of meaningfully embedding risk insights into everyday decisions, community engagement, reporting and long-term planning horizons.
What’s worked well
Collaboration across teams and sectors is a powerful enabler, helping surface local and diverse knowledge, build organisational buy-in, and shared ownership of adaptation work. Building capability and aligning assessments with organisational priorities is key, especially where internal champions and leadership support are present. Futures-focused approaches, including scenario planning, adaptation pathways, and narrative-driven methods, can help practitioners navigate uncertainty, engage communities and translate technical findings into grounded, practical strategies for action.
Concluding reflections
As a significant, path-defining part of climate change adaptation, and a process that integrates many considerations and forms of information, risk assessments demand close attention. Doing a climate change risk assessment well means being thoughtful and transparent about the choices involved, realistic and reflective about the compromises and process, and committed to learning from the whole experience, ready to repeat it again. By engaging with the ubiquitous but neglected topic of climate change risk assessments, the Climate Change Exchange aims to increase awareness and foster discussion about the analytical, practical and ethical complexities involved so that this building block of adaptation provides as strong a foundation as possible.
For a deep dive into the context and topics discussed, check out the new Exchange Commentary on Doing Climate Change Risk Assessments Well.
What we’ve reflected on
For many climate change adaptation researchers and practitioners who were able to participate in the Adaptation Futures 2025 conference in Christchurch, the event offered a powerful pause to reflect on what it truly means to live and practice adaptation. As many of us couldn’t make it, we are grateful for Nooshin Torabi and Ashleigh Stokes, who crafted and shared their thoughtful reflections.
From Christchurch’s lived experience to global stories of communities navigating loss, conflict and change, the message was clear: adaptation is collective, grounded and deeply human. Resilience is built through daily relationships between people, place and planet. Legal frameworks and science can guide us, but it is communities, Indigenous leadership, and local knowledge that ultimately embody and drive just outcomes. The conference highlighted that facing loss is an opportunity to examine equity and dignity, and strengthen our capacity to learn, collaborate and tell new stories of hope. And above all, it was a reminder that adaptation cannot be done alone: it is a shared journey of re-imagining how we live together.
Publicly streamed events are available on the Adaptation Futures 2025 conference website.
What we’re collectively advocating for
A recent expert analysis co‑authored by academics and community leaders, including RMIT and LaTrobe Universities, Centre for Just Places - Jesuit Social Services and the Greater Melbourne Foundation, argues that the Victorian Government’s response to its Parliamentary Inquiry into Climate Resilience (released February 2026) falls short on equity and justice. Drawing on academic expertise and frontline experience delivering climate resilience projects across Victoria, the authors assess the Government’s response and warn that without a stronger focus on equity and justice and robust targets and accountability mechanisms, there is a real risk that adaptation will reinforce ‘business-as-usual,’ perpetuating and reinforcing inequities.
Hot off the Press!
Led by Jesuit Social Services’ Centre for Just Places, in partnership with Wyndham City Council and the Western Public Health Unit, the Lessons in Resilience Report was just launched in collaboration with GenWest, Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS), Victoria University, Network West, cohealth, and Australian Multicultural Community Services. The project aimed to support resilience, just adaptation and health equity by developing a strong local evidence base for community service and health organisations to draw upon. The project’s findings, insights and recommendations are now available on the Centre for Just Places website.
What’s coming up
Next learning exchange: Scoping Adaptation Options
The next Learning Exchange invites researchers and practitioners to a rich conversation on the process of scoping climate change adaptation actions on Wednesday 29 April, 2026 (between 2:30pm-4pm, online). We will discuss how we identify and prioritise adaptation actions to deliver place-based climate adaptation with justice at its core. Drawing on existing research, tools and guidelines as well as insights from practitioners, the session will explore inclusive decision-making, equitable power-sharing, and navigating decision-making in complex governance in under-resourced contexts. Participants will gain practical into the challenges and opportunities in engaging diverse perspectives, embedding equity in planning, and building adaptive capacity for long-term change.
We are stronger together, so get involved, share your ideas, talents and resources with us. For instance, if you have seen good examples of climate change risk assessments out there, please share these with us via the website form and we will upload them to our open-access repository of resources!
Adaptive Cafe, December 2025