Biodiversity and climate change in Australia

• Biodiversity conservation practitioners frequently regard climate change as distant, uncertain, largely intractable and of marginal impact compared to other stresses.
• Recent observations and modelling demonstrate that this is not the case: climate change is already having an impact, we are locked into further climate change that will lead to more extreme impacts on many if not all ecosystems in Australia.
• Climate change will interact with other stresses on biodiversity making it a high priority consideration for almost all policy and management concerned with biodiversity conservation.
• A three-fold approach is required to reduce the impact of climate change on biodiversity conservation: in the short-term, protect species that are particularly vulnerable; in the long-term, facilitate adaptation to future climates; and reduce the magnitude of climate change through mitigation.