Climate change has moved from an abstract future threat to a regular feature of Australian life: hotter summers, smoke seasons, flood repairs and insurance letters arrive in the post. Yet polling suggests concern about “global warming and climate change” has actually slipped down the list of immediate voter priorities, even as climate‑linked anxiety shows up in mental‑health data.[4][5][1]
One explanation is saturation. After years of warnings and pledges, many people feel they understand the basic problem but see limited progress on the practical steps that would affect their own risks and bills. The national conversation spends a lot of time on targets and global summits, less on questions such as whether homes can be insured affordably in high‑risk zones, how quickly hazard‑reduction works are done, or which communities will be supported to relocate rather than rebuild repeatedly.[16][17][1][4]
Climate anxiety is especially visible among younger Australians. The Youth Barometer finds widespread pessimism about the future, with financial stress, housing insecurity and environmental concerns all feeding into a general sense that the system is not set up for them. That does not always translate into activism; for some it leads to disengagement or a focus on private coping strategies—moving inland, changing jobs, or avoiding news—rather than political campaigns.[5]
At the local level, action often looks unglamorous: councils updating flood‑plain maps, residents elevating homes, farmers altering crop choices, and community groups organising heat refuges or neighbourhood fire plans. These do not make headlines like international agreements, but they determine whether particular suburbs and towns can function through the next round of extremes. Funding and coordination for this kind of adaptation remain patchy compared to the scale of the challenge.[1]
The tension between anxiety and action matters because it shapes public tolerance for different policies. People who already feel squeezed by rents, food and power bills are wary of climate measures that look like extra costs or abstract pledges. Bridging that gap means bringing the discussion down to concrete trade‑offs: what is being built, where, who pays, and how that changes the odds of their home flooding or burning in the next decade.[17][4]
Sources
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9797-most-important-issues-facing-australia-january-2025[4]
https://www.salvationarmy.org.au/socialjusticestocktake/[15]
https://www.salvationarmy.org.au/socialjusticestocktake/act/[1]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-18/australia-investing-less-foreign-aid-system-overhaul/102683746[17]
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/australian-youth-barometer-2025-financial-pressures-intensify-for-young-australians-as-confid[5]
https://ipa.org.au/research/climate-change-and-energy/australia-is-ready-for-the-net-zero-debate[16]