Introduction  3

Purpose and audience  3

How to use this guidance  4

Limitations of this guidance  5

Part 1: Foundations  7

1.1 Climate scenarios explained  7

1.1.1 Climate scenario analysis  7

1.1.2 Understanding physical climate risk  8

1.2 Emissions pathways and global warming levels  8

1.2.1 Emissions pathways  8

1.2.2 Global warming levels  10

1.3 Timeframes  12

1.3.1 Key years and average periods  12

1.3.2 Baseline periods  12

1.4 Understanding climate hazards  13

1.4.1 Acute and chronic hazards  13

1.4.2 Climate extremes  14

1.4.3 Compounding events, cascading impacts and uncharted climate futures  15

1.4.4 Longer-term changes  16

Part 2: Selecting emissions pathways  19

2.1 Strengths and limitations of different SSPs  19

2.2 Decision framework  19

2.2.1 Climate disclosures and reporting  21

2.2.2 Policy and strategic decision-making  22

2.2.3 Planning and development decisions  22

2.3 Conducting scenario analysis  23

Part 3: Australian climate projections datasets and information  25

3.1 Types of climate information  25

3.2 Which data source(s) to choose  26

3.2.1 Spatial scale and spatial resolution  26

3.2.2 Choose between the average and the range  28

3.3 Sensible use of climate projections  29

3.3.1 Downscaling to higher resolution models  30

Appendices  31

Appendix A: Example climate hazards for different sectors  31

Appendix B: Case studies  34

Case study 1: SBS Commonwealth Climate Disclosure  34

Case study 2: Australia Post Commonwealth Climate Disclosure  37

Case study 3: Stress testing for the potential impact of heatwave on

Ambulance Victoria  40

Glossary  42

References  44