Human-caused Climate Change - key threatening process

Conservation status in NSW: Key Threatening Process

Description

Anthropogenic Climate Change was listed as a KEY THREATENING PROCESS on Schedule 3 of the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 [3 November 2000].

There is evidence that modification of the environment by humans may result in future climate change. Human induced activities as a result of energy use, industrial processes, solvent and other product use, agriculture, land use change and forestry, and waste cause greenhouse gas emissions. Human-caused climate change may occur at a faster rate than has previously occurred naturally and may involve both changes in average temperature conditions and changes to the frequency of occurrence of extreme events.

Fire is an integral part of the dynamics of many Australian ecosystems and the risk of fire may increase in some areas as the climate changes and decrease in others, with consequent changes to the species composition and structure of ecological communities (Brasher & Pittock 1998; NSW Scientific Committee 2000).

The distribution of most species, populations and communities is determined by climate and many species would be adversely affected unless populations were able to move across the landscape. Species at risk include those with long generations, poor mobility, narrow ranges, specific host relationships, isolate and specialised species and those with large home ranges (Hughes & Westoby 1994).

Examples of species which would be at risk in New South Wales include: Mammals: Mountain Pygmy-possum, Long-footed Potoroo, Broad-toothed rat, Smoky mouse. Birds: Malleefowl, Plains-wanderer, Sooty Owl, Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo, Regent Parrot, Pink Robin, Red-lored Whistler. Reptiles: Striped Legless lizard. Amphibians: Spotted Frog, Southern Bell Frog, Northern Corroboree Frog, Southern Corroboree Frog. Flora: Communities likely to become threatened include alpine vegetation communities (Busby 1988, Hughes & Westoby 1994).

Loss of climatic habitat caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases is listed as a key threatening process under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

Threat abatement - priority actions

A number of priority actions have been identified for this key threatening process. Priority actions are the specific, practical things that must be done to tackle a key threatening process. They have been grouped into 7 overarching threat abatement strategies.

See all threat abatement strategies and priority actions for this key threatening process.