Central West Climate Action

Central West Climate Action

Australian and international research organisations agree that the world's climate is changing. Some of these changes have been linked to human influences due to the use of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. The burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in the amount of greenhouse gases and consequent warming of the atmosphere.

Observed changes in climate include an increase in average temperatures, a decrease in cold temperature extremes, an increase in warm temperature extremes, an increase in extreme high sea levels and an increase in the number of intense rainfall events in some area.

The impacts of climate change highlight the need to protect land for its future productive capacity particularly where there is a combination of biophysical assets such as water, topography and soils.

The Central West supports high value agriculture now and will be important to sustain production of more specialised agricultural and horticultural enterprises into the future.

Farm adaptation options are already being developed with the Grains Research and Development work on farming systems, and the cotton industry. A critical concern to irrigated agriculture is securing water for production in terms of quality, quantity and delivery.