Reframing Risk: Why Community-Led Action Must Guide Australia’s Climate Response

DisasterWISE Communities Network welcomes the release of the Second Pass of the National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA). This work is a necessary step in developing a clearer national picture of the risks posed by climate change, and in building a coordinated response.

We acknowledge the effort made to broaden the scope of assessment beyond hazards, to include factors such as vulnerability, exposure, and adaptive capacity. A more holistic framing is essential. We hope the assessment will amplify the critical element of community leadership in shaping and responding to the risks they live with every day.

In our view, community-led action is core foundation to resilience. Unless future work under the NCRA centres community governance, structural equity, and local knowledge systems, we risk reinforcing the very vulnerabilities we are trying to address.

Where Progress Has Been Made

The Second Pass makes several important steps forward:

• It acknowledges that climate risk is not just about extreme weather, but about interconnected systems - from health and housing to food, transport, and biodiversity.

• It includes a standalone First Nations risk assessment stream, recognising that Indigenous communities face distinct risks and bring vital knowledge to adaptation.

• It emphasises values such as collaboration, inclusivity, and equity as central to the methodology.

These are positive developments and reflect growing recognition that climate risk is socially shaped and unevenly distributed. These values have not yet translated into a practical model for community-led decision-making. The NCRA still reads largely as a top-down technical exercise, with limited space for communities to define their own risks, needs and priorities, in shaping their futures and pathways forward.

Key Gaps and Concerns

1. Indigenous Knowledge and Leadership Need Stronger Foundations

The inclusion of a First Nations assessment process is welcome, but the broader framework still treats Indigenous perspectives as complementary rather than central. True and authentic approaches would require:

• Embedding Indigenous governance and self-determination into all levels of risk planning

• Providing sustained support for On-Country adaptation initiatives

• Shifting institutional culture to recognise the legitimacy of Indigenous knowledge systems, not only as environmental inputs, but as whole-of-system ways of understanding and caring for place and Country.

2. Understanding Risk Requires Understanding Power

The assessment identifies vulnerable populations and high-risk regions but gives less attention to the underlying structures that produce this vulnerability. This includes:

• Systemic underinvestment in regional, remote and Indigenous communities

• Power imbalances in governance and planning processes

• Legacy impacts of colonisation on land access, infrastructure and decision-making

Without confronting these issues directly, the risk assessment framework remains incomplete. It can tell us where climate risks are concentrated, but not why they persist or what kinds of change are needed to disrupt them. 

3. Communities Are Framed as Vulnerable, Not Capable

While the report references local capacity, it continues to position communities primarily as recipients of government intervention. This is at odds with decades of evidence from lived experience and research showing that:

• Communities are often the first to respond in times of disaster

• Local knowledge provides more context-specific solutions than external models

• Long-term recovery is strongest when it is led by the people affected

By framing communities as passive, dependent and reliant, we overlook a vital source of resilience and innovation. We also risk continuing to design responses that are ill-suited to local realities and varying contexts. 

What Community-Led Risk Governance Looks Like

To support stronger, fairer and more grounded climate adaptation, DisasterWISE offer four key recommendations:

1. Centre Indigenous Sovereignty and Knowledge

• Ensure Indigenous leadership is embedded across all climate governance structures

• Respect cultural governance and resource Indigenous-led risk management on Country

• Support frameworks that align with self-determination, not institutional convenience

2. Place Community Leadership at the Centre

• Go beyond consultation to co-design and co-governance

• Build decision-making processes that are led by those most affected

• Trust and fund the local organisations already doing the good work on the ground

3. Address Structural Drivers of Risk

• Include analysis of policy settings, governance models, and funding systems that entrench ‘vulnerabilities’

• Identify where national and state frameworks are blocking - and not enabling - local resilience

• Recgnise that risk is not just about exposure; it’s also about power, voice, and agency

4. Invest in Long-Term Local Capacity

• Fund community-led, place-based planning, response, and recovery with flexible, accessible and sustained resources.

• Support organisations that are place-based, culturally embedded, and trusted by their communities

• Move away from short-term pilots and programmatic grants toward relationship-driven, long-term partnerships

Conclusion: From Assessment to Action

The Second Pass of the National Climate Risk Assessment provides a stronger foundation for understanding the scale and scope of climate risk in Australia. But understanding risk is only one part of the challenge. The real work lies in how we choose to respond.

DisasterWISE calls for the next phase of this work to reflect the leadership of the communities most impacted by climate change - particularly First Nations, remote, and structurally marginalised groups. It’s time to dismantle inequities rather than simply observe them.

Resilience will not come from systems alone. We need to move beyond best intentions. Resilience will come from relationships, trust, local leadership, and shared responsibility. That means making space for community voices, decentralising power and decolonising ways of working toward relational ways of being and doing.