The Potential for Transformation: A Conjunctural Analysis of Australian Climate Change Adaptation Policy

This thesis investigates the transformative potential of climate change adaptation policy and planning to foster systemic and proactive climate change responses in an Australia context. Over the past decade, there has been a discernible shift towards mainstreaming societal transformation in response to global challenges such as climate change. These shifts have been further accelerated, as the converging crises of COVID-19 and worsening observable climate change impacts highlight the need for new ways of being and doing. The growing narrative of transformative adaptation provides a pathway for considering the necessary changes in the systems needed to address and align action on climate change. With multiple sub-national governments in Australia adopting the concept in their climate change adaptation policy and practices, it is imperative to investigate how (and to what extent) climate change adaptation policies and plans can be transformative. Given the complex histories underpinning climate change adaptation policy and planning in Australia, there is also a need to understand how policies build on past and present contexts to make ‘climate change adaptation’ governable. This research aims to examine how transformation can be fostered through climate change adaptation policy and planning, focusing on selected Australian cases that aim to embed transformative adaptation. To do so, the thesis proposed a novel framework that emphasises conjunctures as a tool to investigate the political, economic, cultural and ideological forces shaping policy and planning responses to climate change. This novel approach – conjunctural thinking – employs articulation, contradiction and crisis concepts to explore the conjunctural dynamics that accumulate within policy and planning contexts. This research approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on concepts and theories from cultural studies, environmental politics, human geography and policy analysis. Through two cases of climate change adaptation policies in Victoria, Australia (Water Sector Adaptation Action Plan and Gippsland Regional Adaptation Strategy), this thesis research develops and employs ‘conjunctural thinking’ as an analytical lens to critically examine the extent to which climate change adaptation policy and planning allows for and enables transformative climate change adaptation. These cases are significant as their broader policy sets (Victoria’s Adaptation Action Plans and Victoria’s Regional Adaptation Strategies) have developed at a time when the express intention of the State of Victoria is to ‘lay the foundation for transformational adaptation’ (Department of Environment, Water, and Land Planning, 2021, p. 17). The research uses the examination of political, economic, cultural and ideological forces to provide a holistic understanding of the conjunctural foundation of Victoria’s climate change adaptation policy and planning strategies and their transformative potential in practice. Qualitative research methods include a critical literature review, policy analysis, semi-structured interviews, and case-study fieldwork. The findings of this research are two-fold. First, each case study provides unique insights into the conjunctural dimensions of climate change adaptation policy and planning within Australia. The findings from the Water Sector Adaptation Action Plan case suggest that a disjuncture exists between escalating climate risks and diminishing institutional capacity. On the other hand, the findings from the Gippsland Regional Adaptation Strategy case highlight a layered and contextually rich policy environment with both conflicting states of high transition possibility and high climate risk and vulnerability. Second, these cases build into a layered discussion of critical moments present within the Australian climate change adaptation policy landscape. Specifically, the discussion identifies three critical moments – i] the convergence of crises, ii] the role of institutional conditions, and iii] the significance of cultural inertia, that hinder the uptake of transformative adaptation. These findings suggest that to promote transformative adaptation, more attention is needed on the impact of critical conjunctures, particularly as converging crises present a disruptive force for climate change adaptation policy and planning. In this thesis, the lens of conjunctural thinking is put forth as a way to engage with these critical conjunctures. In conducting this research, this thesis contributes to the study of climate change adaptation policy and planning in three key ways. First, the development of conjunctural thinking lens provides a novel methodological framework for analysing the Australian climate change adaptation landscape. The conjunctural perspective enhances understanding of the conditions influencing how climate change adaptation policy and planning is susceptible to disruption and how it might be strengthened. The framework provides a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to policy research focused on the interconnectedness of culture, politics, economy, and ideologies in shaping policy outcomes. Second, the application of conjunctural thinking validates its effectiveness in generating insightful analyses of climate change adaptation policy landscapes. Such insights are valuable for leveraging the transformative potential of climate change adaptation as pressures and conditions inhibiting transformative policy options by highlighting contradictions and critical moments within the climate change adaptation policy and planning. Third, the research provides novel findings on the transformative potential within the Australian climate change adaptation policy landscape particularly related to incompatibilities between climate change adaptation policies and planning and the characteristics of transformative adaptation. While policy recommendations are not made, the insights provide the groundwork for future research directions concerning the complex social dynamics involved in climate change adaptation.<p></p>