Who Pays for a Crisis We Didn't Create?

On October 7, Port Phillip Council made a decision that deserves more attention than it might initially receive. In a unanimous vote, the Council backed the call for a national Climate Compensation Fund, asking the Federal Government to help communities manage the escalating costs of climate-related disasters.

At first glance, this might seem like another motion passed at a council meeting. But I think it speaks to something much bigger: who bears the responsibility for a crisis, and who is left paying for it?

Across Australia, the cost of climate disasters has risen twelvefold in two decades, while local government revenue has grown only threefold. The consequences are increasingly felt by communities on the frontline of climate impacts.

In Port Phillip, a quarter of the municipality faces high flood risk as sea levels rise. Yet local councils are often left to manage these growing impacts with limited resources.

There is something deeply unsettling about this imbalance. While communities bear the brunt of climate disasters, the fossil fuel industries driving the crisis continue to evade their fair share of responsibility. The burden of recovery falls disproportionately on local governments, households and taxpayers.

This is where climate compensation becomes more than a question of funding. It becomes a question of justice.

What would it mean for the costs of climate damage to be shared more equitably? What would it look like if those who have contributed most to the crisis were also expected to contribute meaningfully to the recovery? And what possibilities could open up for communities if they were no longer struggling to find the resources to simply respond to disasters?

Port Phillip is now the fourteenth council to support the Communities for Climate Compensation campaign, joining councils across Australia in calling for a national response.

As Mayor Alex Makin pointed out, this is not one council acting alone. It is a growing collective voice asking the Federal Government to recognise that climate impacts are local, but the responsibility to address them cannot be localised.

I find something hopeful in this collective action. Local governments are often closest to the people experiencing climate impacts. They see the flooded streets, the damaged infrastructure, the vulnerable households and the long process of recovery. Their voices deserve to be part of shaping what climate responsibility looks like in this country.

Perhaps the question we need to ask is not simply how much climate disasters cost us, but why we continue to ask the same communities to carry so much of that cost.

Because climate resilience cannot just mean preparing communities to withstand more damage. It must also mean building a system in which they are not left to bear the consequences alone.

And that, to me, is where climate justice begins.