A simplified qualitative scale for assessing and communicating climate change impacts

A simplified qualitative scale for assessing and communicating climate change impacts

This thesis reports that a simple qualitative scale for assessing and communicating climate change impacts can be applied effectively to assess climate change impact to a region. The results presented on this simple scale could improve clarity in communication of climate change to the
public.

The study identifies different approaches to modelling various natural event variables and different climate change indexes. It concludes that there is currently no available simplified scale for assessing and measuring current climate change impacts. The thesis makes a case for the inadequacy of these approaches, as they either do not measure climate change impacts or they are too complex. Accordingly, this research presents a simplified
qualitative scale for assessing and communicating climate change impacts.

The scale was designed on existing scale frameworks contained within the Australian Risk Management Standard and other scaling methods. The scale was distributed to 20 Pacific nations as part of a climate change impact survey. Participants used the scale to assess the impact of climate
change across a number of sub-systems including terrestrial and marine, water, tourism, socio economic, culture, health, food and agriculture and meteorological. The survey successfully elicited assessments of the different
climate change impacts evident across the Pacific Island nation states. The results are presented in graphic and tabular form which provides a readily accessible appreciation of the different impacts of climate change. This in itself demonstrates the merits of constructing a scale. The assessment results indicate that there is currently a moderate to severe impact from climate change across the Pacific region.