RedBridge writes on its Substack about the new Australian Resilience Index. The index was built by Zurich, Mandala, RedBridge and Accent Research, and it scores 2,261 communities on their ability to take a hit and recover, whether that's a job loss, a health scare, a flood or a rate rise. Read more on RedBridge's Substack.

The index scores communities on three things: financial, health and social resilience. It finds that low resilience comes in two forms. In the outer suburbs of the big cities, the problem is mostly money and weak social ties. In the regions, the problem is mostly health.

Tasmania shows the regional pattern across the whole state. A quarter of Tasmanians live in low or very low resilience communities, the highest share of any state. Tasmania also has the weakest health resilience of any state or territory. Fifty-nine per cent of Tasmanians live in a community with low or very low health resilience, compared with 23 per cent nationally. Bridgewater and Gagebrook have the lowest health score of any community in Australia. Braddon has the second-weakest health resilience of any electorate. Mid-life women are also exposed: 42 per cent of Tasmanian women aged 35 to 49 fall into a low or very low resilience group.

There is real strength too. Tasmania has the strongest social resilience and the highest volunteering rate of any state. As the piece puts it, a community with strong ties and poor health needs services. It does not need to be rebuilt.

Why it matters for climate action: Floods, fires, heatwaves and rising costs will not land evenly. This index shows, suburb by suburb, which communities have no buffer when something goes wrong. For Tasmania, building climate resilience means getting health and mental health services closer to people. It also means supporting the community networks that already hold our towns together, and putting the most effort into places like Bridgewater, Gagebrook and the north-west coast.

Carbon Brief writes about the decline in global land-use emissions. Read more on Carbon Brief https://://www.carbonbrief.org/why-land-use-emissions-have-fallen-by-a-third-this-century-in-six-charts.

While fossil fuel emissions continue to climb, the Global Carbon Budget report highlights a statistically significant decrease in land-use change emissions since the late 1990s. This trend is particularly driven by a decline in permanent deforestation in countries like Brazil and Indonesia, alongside increased carbon sequestration from forest regrowth.

For Tasmania, this global trend underscores the vital importance of protecting our native forests and managing land use to ensure our natural carbon sinks remain intact. While the decline in land-use emissions is good news, it must not lead to complacency; the rapid rise in fossil fuel emissions remains the primary driver of the climate crisis.

1. Decreased emissions from deforestation and peatland loss.
2. Increased CO2 removals from reforestation and afforestation.
3. The importance of international trade regulations and forest protection policies.

Andrew Dickson writes in Renew Economy about the critical intersection of maritime security and decarbonisation in the Pacific. Read more on Renew Economy.

The current Pacific security architecture faces a significant vulnerability: a heavy reliance on imported diesel for shipping. This dependency makes island nations susceptible to fuel price spikes and supply chain disruptions caused by global conflict or extreme weather.

The Charter of the Pacific Blue Shipping Partnership offers a solution through wind-assisted propulsion technology. This technology is proven, scalable, and can be retrofitted to existing vessels, providing a way to decouple maritime transport from fossil fuel volatility.

For Australia and the Pacific, investing in wind-assisted shipping is not just a climate action; it is a strategic security measure. By supporting the regional transition to low-carbon maritime transport, Australia can bolster regional stability and ensure that essential goods continue to move even when fuel markets are unstable.

Karl P.Z. discusses the science of fire ecology and fuel reduction on the Podbean podcast. Read more on Podbean here.

This discussion is critical for Tasmania, where bushfire management strategies must balance ecosystem health with community safety. The research highlighted suggests that repeatedly burning forests to reduce fuel loads can inadvertently maintain vegetation in a younger, denser, and more flammable state, potentially increasing long-term risk rather than mitigating it.

Key insights from the discussion include:

1. The limitations of simple fuel-load models in predicting fire behaviour.
2. How vegetation regeneration after fire can lead to periods of increased flammability.
3. The importance of understanding plant traits and vegetation structure in fire ecology.

For those interested in deeper dives into the scientific nuances of fire management, the podcast explores how we might manage bushfire risk differently in the future based on peer-reviewed evidence.