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Climate change will empty the pockets of Melbourne's most vulnerable residents as rising temperatures and sea levels drive up the cost of living, a report says.
As the federal government continued weeks of debate on the validity of an emissions trading scheme (ETS), the report concludes that climate change is real and will drive a wedge between the rich and the poor if communities don't act quickly.
'Alarming evidence continues to mount about the rate at which our climate is changing and the implications this has for the ecological and social systems we depend on,' the report says.
'Unabated and unaddressed, climate change will exacerbate existing social inequities.'
The report, released on Tuesday by the Melbourne Community Foundation, reviewed previous studies on community infrastructure needs and identified climate change as one of seven key factors that will have a dramatic impact on the quality of life by 2030.
Other factors include rapid population growth, lack of affordable housing and problems with public transport.
Climate change, however, will have the greatest impact on low income families, the report says, as they struggle to pay for needed rainwater tanks, energy efficiency, retrofitting and solar panels in their homes and the rising costs of food and petrol.
Older generations and those with chronic illness will see their health impacted more often by extreme weather conditions - on top of the price impact successive droughts and heatwaves will have of groceries.
The lack of water will make water more expensive, the report says, while the transformation from coal to renewable energy will drive up costs.
In short, the report concludes climate change will be expensive and will therefore hit the bottom line of Melbourne's most at-risk residents more heavily.
Most of those residents will live in outer suburbs where an estimated 500,000 more people are expected to live in 20 years.
Melbourne Community Foundation CEO Sarah Davies told community leaders gathered at Eureka Tower upon the report's release that it was 'very topical' with the election of Tony Abbott as the new leader of the Liberal Party.
'Those that don't have the financial resources to accommodate and adapt to that climate change are going to suffer the most,' she said.
The report calls for more funding to subsidise the cost of solar panels, water tanks and home insulation.
A climate literacy project to explain the livability implications of climate change is also deserving of funding, the report says.
'If we don't take this opportunity now, then we're going to be standing here in 10 years' time trying to figure out what we're going to do to react to the entrenched service gap and disadvantage that we've allowed to develop,' she said.
The report came as the Liberal party room pulled the emissions trading scheme back from a Senate vote for further discussion.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters in Washington DC that Australia needed real action on climate change.
'After 10 years of delay on climate change, further delay equals denial on climate change,' he said.
