Climate resilient environment and community

Enivornment and climate

Climate resilient environment and community

Climate mitigation and adaptation are important to track as they contribute to both personal wellbeing, the wellbeing of the economy, and society as a whole.

Annual climate resilience indicator

It is important to wellbeing to identify how successfully people in the ACT are adapting to the effects of climate change, including being better prepared for events such as prolonged heatwaves, drought and storms, and having the capacity to cope with these and recover from them when they occur.

Between 2023 and 2024, overall community resilience to climate change declined slightly. This was driven largely by a decline in individual resilience, which reflected an increase in financial stress and reduction in social connection, as well as a small decline in community and emergency resilience that was offset by a small increase in heat and drought resilience that can, in part be attributed to programs delivered by the ACT government to improve energy efficiency and thermal comfort in homes.

The University of Canberra 2024 Living Well in the ACT Region survey report identified that those experiencing increased financial stress are sometimes reducing insurance levels; additionally, having fewer financial resources reduces ability to easily manage unexpected expenses associated with damage from storms or flooding, or to invest in actions that increase resilience to heatwaves such as improving home insulation.

The change can be further understood by examining how the proportion of people with low, moderate and high resilience changed between 2023 and 2024:

This is a new measure on the dashboard.

Data for this indicator are sourced from the University of Canberra Living well in the ACT Region survey. Detailed survey data, survey user guide and published reports from the survey can be accessed at https://www.regionalwellbeing.org.au/living-well-in-the-act-region/.

Stacked bar chart, for 2023 and 2024, showing the percentage of respondents with very low, low, moderate and high resilience to change in climate. Between 2023 and 2024:

  • Very low resilience grew from 10.0% to 15.0%
  • Low and moderate resilience stayed similar
  • High resilience declined from 20.0% to 17.0%.

Resilience to the impacts of climate change in the ACT is measured in detail every five years in the Living Well with a Changing Climate survey, which was most recently undertaken in late 2023 (first in 2018). Levels of climate change resilience are assessed by examining the access ACT residents have to six resources identified as being necessary for climate change resilience:

  • Individual resilience: the personal access of individuals to resources such as household finances, health and skills and social connection
  • Community resilience: the availability of community resources that enable people to prepare, respond and recover from climate-change related events, such as health services and infrastructure
  • Heatwave resilience: ability to stay safe and healthy during heatwaves without spending a lot of money, including being able to easily stay cool at home and at work
  • Emergency resilience: preparedness for emergency natural hazard events such as bushfire, flood and damaging storms
  • Drought resilience: preparedness for times of water scarcity
  • Climate change awareness and support for action: views about climate change and level of support for action to be taken to address and respond to climate change.

In addition to the detailed reporting available from the Living Well with a Changing Climate survey, an annual climate resilience indicator has been developed to enable more regular tracking of change in climate change resilience. This tracks resilience to climate change using a subset of the measures examined in the Living Well with a Changing Climate survey. The annual indicator was first measured in late 2023, and a second time in 2024.

Tree canopy cover

This measure shows how much of Canberra's urban footprint is covered by tree canopy.

This is important because the 'urban forest' provides important benefits to our urban ecosystem. Benefits include:

In 2025 the tree canopy cover for Canberra was 21.8%, down from 22.5% in 2020. The canopy cover analysis runs every five years, with the next update due in 2030.

Canberra’s Living Infrastructure Plan sets a target of 30% tree canopy cover over Canberra’s urban footprint by 2045.

The full data set collected in 2025 will not be available for visualisation until mid-2026. View a map of tree coverage in 2020 at ACT Canopy Cover Map 2020.

The data is derived from the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data captured in March and April 2025. It is published as part of the Urban Tree Canopy Coverage Report.

Bar chart showing the percentage of tree canopy coverage in the ACT in 2020 and 2025. In 2025, tree canopy cover for Canberra was 21.8%.

The 2025 data is derived from the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data captured in March and April 2025.

It provides the estimated percentage coverage of vegetation above 3m for the footprint of all urban divisions (suburbs): 21.8%.

Greenhouse gas emissions

This measure shows annual greenhouse gas emissions in the ACT, measured in kilotonnes (thousands of tonnes) of carbon dioxide equivalent (kt CO2-e).

Reducing emissions is important because it will make Canberra a more liveable city now and in the future.

The ACT achieved a 47% reduction in emissions from the 1990 baseline, falling slightly short of the 2025 interim target of a 50–60% reduction.

ACT’s renewable energy policy has caused emissions from electricity to fall to zero since 2020. Electricity generation was previously the largest contributor to emissions. The largest remaining emissions’ contributors are ground transport and stationary energy, specifically fossil fuel gas.

Over time the ACT is committed to net zero emissions by 2045. Read more at ACT Climate Change Strategy. Development of a new Climate Change Strategy is underway.

ACT Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Reports.

Line graphs of greenhouse emissions in the ACT, by financial year from 2014-15 to 2024-25.

In 2024-25, 1,657.7 kilotonnes (thousands of tonnes) of carbon dioxide equivalent were emitted in total. This compares to 1,683.7 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023-24.

Please refer to the data source for more detailed information on methodology, including methodology changes.

Heatwave resilience

This measure shows the proportion of Canberrans who report it being easy to cope with heatwaves when they happen.

Our confidence in our ability to cope with heatwaves has remained stable over the years. In 2024, 61.9% of Canberrans said that they could easily cope with heatwaves when they happen.

The University of Canberra 2024 Living Well in the ACT Region survey showed that housing, age and carer status all play a part in our ability to cope with hot weather. Older Canberrans (aged 50 or over) were more likely to feel confident, whereas single parents (43.7%), renters (38.8%), and carers (36.4%) were least likely to feel confident.

Similarly, young people aged 18-29, people with restrictive disabilities, and females were less likely to feel able to easily cope with heatwaves.

Heatwave resilience is an element of the broader Annual Climate Resilience Indicator, a new dashboard measure in this section of the dashboard.

Data for this indicator are sourced from the University of Canberra Living well in the ACT Region survey. Detailed survey data, survey user guide and published reports from the survey can be accessed at https://www.regionalwellbeing.org.au/living-well-in-the-act-region/.

Line graph of percentage of Canberrans who agreed, disagreed, or neither agreed nor disagreed that they could cope with heatwaves in the ACT between 2019 and 2024.

In 2024:

  • 61.9% agreed that they could easily cope with heatwaves, compared to 57.4% in 2023
  • 22.3% disagreed that they could easily cope with heatwaves compared to 24.3% in 2023
  • 15.8% neither agreed nor disagreed that they could easily cope with heatwaves compared to 18.3% in 2023.

The Living Well in the ACT Region survey, conducted by the University of Canberra, aims to measure, track and understand the wellbeing and resilience of adult residents living in the Australian Capital Territory region of Australia. It examines factors known to affect wellbeing and resilience at the individual, household, community and regional level.

When generating data for the ACT, statistical weighting is used to address differences between the sample of people who respond to the survey, and the characteristics of the ACT adult population.

Data are produced from this survey for different groups of people in the ACT. The ‘overall response’ category represents responses at the ACT population level. Where reliable estimates can be produced, data are also presented for Canberrans by: gender, age, cultural background, gender identity and sexuality, carer role and experience of disability. Not all differences over time or between groups are statistically significant: information on confidence intervals for the data presented here is available in data tables that can be accessed at https://www.regionalwellbeing.org.au/living-well-in-the-act-region/.

Care is needed when interpreting the differences in findings between groups as the descriptive statistics published here show where there are differences in wellbeing, but not what has caused those differences in wellbeing.

Further information about the survey can be found at Living Well in the ACT Region or by contacting regionalwellbeing@canberra.edu.au.