Climate risks are hitting where Australians feel it most: at home.

One of the headline-grabbing figures in a new climate risk assessment was that Australian property values could take a A$611 billion hit by 2050, under a 3°C warming scenario.

That level of warming is something Australia needs plan for. As a new National Adaptation Plan, also released yesterday, said:

it is prudent to plan for global warming levels of 2°C to 3°C by the end of this century, with temperatures in Australia likely to track higher than the global average.

But what does that $611 billion hit to property values actually mean? And what more can we do to better protect our homes – including 1.5 million of them already at high or very high risk today?

Australia’s first comprehensive National Climate Risk assessment, released yesterday, forecasts losses in Australian “property values” could reach $571 billion by 2030 under a 3°C warming scenario. By 2050, that could hit $611 billion.

To be clear, that isn’t the bill to repair or rebuild homes after disasters. And it doesn’t include the cost of replacing public assets such as roads, bridges or power stations.

It’s the drop in market value of properties as climate risk becomes clearer, buyers pay less, banks may value homes lower, and insurance can get more expensive or harder to obtain.

For example, if a house that might have sold for $800,000 without these risks sells for $720,000 once flood risk and higher premiums are factored in, that $80,000 difference is a “loss in value”.

Aggregated across the country, those........

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