The Victorian Government’s budget for 2025-2026 is touted as focusing on cost of living and community safety, but without meaningful investment in climate adaptation, costs for Victorians (both economic and physical) will remain high. 

New report on Vic’s Resilience Inquiry reveals united appeal for increased funding of climate adaptation and the most popular climate adaptation solutions

Act on Climate (AoC) attended and shared its campaign material at the Hotter, Drier, Risker: Bushfire in the Colac-Otway Region event in Colac on 16 April 2025 at Colac Otway Performing Arts & Cultural Centre. The event set out to explore: "with bushfire seasons getting longer and more intense, how can our communities be safer and better prepared?"

It featured Colac Otway Climate Action Team, members of which are part of AoC's Frontline Climate Alliance Vic (FCAV) and attend AoC's Adaptation Activator calls, Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action, Emergency Leaders for Climate Action's Greg Mullins, and Australian Firefighters Climate Alliance. In addition, candidates standing for the seat of Wannon in the 2025 federal election were there to share their views and answer questions.

The evening was well attended by community members from all over the Colac-Otway Region and covered what’s changing in our environment, what it means for fire risk, and what governments can do to prepare us.

The Act on Climate collective’s latest report, VIC Climate Resilience Inquiry Analysed: The leading concerns & adaptation solutions, shares how Victorian communities can and want to adapt, as well as inspiring examples of what community-led climate adaptation looks like.

Find out the climate adaptation solutions Victorians want to see funded and enacted, then ask your MP to advocate for increased funding of climate adaptation and the climate adaptation solutions communities are calling for using our pre-written email. 

On 8 February 2025, the Act on Climate collective curated the first ever Climate Adaptation Fair at Borderlands Coop. Have a listen to the panel discussions that were had on the day, from topics such as how to care for Country and communities ourselves to how can we adapt our food systems. 

Click on the links to listen to the recordings on YouTube or listen to them below.

On 8 February 2025, the Act on Climate collective curated the first ever Climate Adaptation Fair at Borderlands Coop. It was a huge day of bringing people together from across Victoria to share and learn from each other about the climate impacts already affecting communities and how we can keep each other safe.

Check out the photos from the fair in this google drive folder and the recordings of the panel discussions here

It’s confirmed: 2024 saw average annual temperatures exceed 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. In the face of frequent disasters and inadequate action at the national level, many individuals ask themselves a similar question: What can I do? 

It’s easy to become despondent and cynical in the wake of the climate crisis. Fossil fuel industries benefit from others’ lack of hope and feelings of powerlessness; this allows them to continue with business as usual. However, the act of uniting with others to act upon our common interests is a step any individual can take towards building a better future, towards building comm-unity. The free gathering of individuals is, in itself, a radical action that can have big impacts.

Communities around Victoria are adapting to climate change through community-led initiatives that bring people together. The question “What can I do?” increases in strength when it becomes “What can we do?”

How can we build resilient communities and face climate impacts collectively? As part of the 2025 National Sustainability Festival, the Act on Climate collective has organised a Climate Adaptation Fair on 8 Feb at Borderlands Cooperative in Footscray from 10am-4pm to explore what community-led climate adaptation looks like.

There will be panel discussions, stalls, workshops, food, a lunchtime music session and coffee.

Climate impacts are here now. Come along to find out how we - the people - can keep each other safe and to discover inspiring examples of climate adaptation already happening.

Extreme heat kills more people in Australia than all other environmental disasters combined. And they are getting hotter and more regular. How can you keep yourself and those most at risk in your community safe?

The coming summer is expected to be extremely hot, power outages are a possibility, and the rising cost of living means many people are worried about their electricity bill.

So, it’s more important than ever to share how to keep safe without relying on air-conditioning and to check-in on people on hot days, especially those most at risk – older people, people with young children, people living with disabilities and chronic illness, people who live in hot homes, and people who are socially isolated. 

We explore what makes a heatwave, what to do before to prepare and what to do during a heatwave to stay cool. As well as how to keep yourself safe, we cover how to keep others safe, considering more than half of heatwave deaths occur in disadvantaged areas.

The Victorian Government’s investment in climate adaptation needs to be larger and ongoing to enable the immediate and extensive adaptations to prepare for now unavoidable climate impacts.

Victoria is at the forefront of emissions reduction, but it is falling behind on climate adaptation, despite the risks of not investing in preparedness being clear.

Victoria is one of the most vulnerable states in the world - it is in the top 5% of highest risk states globally. There has been a 74% increase in damage to property in Victoria from 1990 to 2050.

Climate impacts and disasters are costing the Victorian Government billions and escalating social problems. Funding adaptation now will reduce recovery costs, as well as ease pressure on our health system and economy from climate impacts.

We need to spend money now to protect people later, as waiting to respond to these disasters greatly increases the long-term monetary and societal cost.