CSIRO cuts climate research jobs, despite budget funding boost

Australia’s national science agency has confirmed it will shed 92 jobs, the majority of which will come from environment and climate modelling teams.

Staff were pulled into town hall meetings across the country at 11am on Thursday and told about the job cuts, which had first been foreshadowed in November ahead of consultation with staff and stakeholders.

In March, a CSIRO spokesman said a comprehensive review of the agency’s research portfolio had identified “complementary and duplicative capabilities” in the environment research unit, which had been formed through an earlier merger of two units.

“The proposed changes impact 102 FTE [full-time equivalent] roles and are intended to reduce this duplication, better integrate science across disciplines, more effectively address critical national challenges and maximise science impact within available funding,” he said.

After a period of consultation and feedback, the agency announced it would cut 92 jobs – 10 fewer than initially foreshadowed.

The agency has announced it will pursue a “renewed emphasis” on climate adaptation and resilience research to deliver “practical science”.

“CSIRO is making essential strategic research shifts to focus its efforts on where we can deliver the greatest national impact,” the spokesman said.

“To achieve this sharpened focus, we are exiting research where we lack scale to achieve significant impact, or areas where others in the sector are better placed to deliver.”

Critics said this would shift CSIRO’s research focus from climate change mitigation to adaptation.

The losses cap a tumultuous period for staff at the agency, with more than 300 roles to be cut in the current redundancy round, following about 800 jobs lost over the past year.

CSIRO insiders fear for the future of the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) model, built in partnership with the Bureau of Meteorology, universities and international partners.

ACCESS is a system which, CSIRO says, “provides a national weather, climate and Earth system modelling capability for operations and research”. It is used by climate scientists across the country to underpin and inform their own research and modelling about the impacts of climate change on landscapes, oceans, animals and agricultural viability.

It’s understood five of the 15 specialised climate modellers working on ACCESS will lose their jobs.

The cuts come amid mounting predictions of an El Nino weather pattern taking hold, which typically brings flooding risk to the Americas and raises the chances of severe droughts in parts of Asia and eastern Australia.

Science Minister Tim Ayres said while it was the job of the CSIRO board to determine where cuts were made, he backed the organisation’s move to make targeted cuts to specific programs like climate modelling.

“The CSIRO has to make decisions. It is a matter for the board and management of the CSIRO how they deliver this,” Ayres told ABC radio.

“In terms of the approach to modelling, I’ll let the CSIRO answer that question itself. I just say that they have to make decisions about delivering on making sure that the CSIRO … is delivering on solving the big national challenges for Australia.”

Ayres said the government had provided sufficient funding for CSIRO to deliver on its objectives as the chief science agency.

“For the government’s part, our job here is providing leadership for the CSIRO and making sure that they have got the budget envelope that puts them on a sustainable pathway.”

Leading climate scientist Professor Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, president of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, said cutting one-third of the specialised workforce would devastate CSIRO’s capacity to predict and model the effects of climate change.

“Basically, without the ACCESS model, we’re running on a dial-up modem,” she said.

Science and Technology Australia chief executive Ryan Winn said CSIRO’s research contributed to global climate models, and Australia is the only country in the southern hemisphere contributing to these models.

“We have a national – and regional – responsibility to maintain this role,” he said.

“If there is no funding found to continue this crucial capability, it could have devastating effects for a range of research organisations and advisory agencies who rely on this data.

“That scientific data underpins information used to manage food production and keep the cost of living down. It’s our best defence against devastating floods and bushfires, which is sending the cost of insurance through the roof.”

The Australian government committed an additional $387.4 million to the agency over the forward estimates in this month’s federal budget. On May 9, a CSIRO statement said this funding would support the agency’s sustainability and “provide greater stability for its workforce”.

CSIRO Staff Association secretary Susan Tonks said the cuts would damage the agency’s science capacity.

“All roles are important, but we know that CSIRO’s climate research is critical to maintaining accurate modelling here in the southern hemisphere as part of a global science effort,” she said.