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The city was imagined as a “city in the landscape”, a capital woven into bushland and open sky.
That landscape is changing faster than its founders could have imagined.
Transformation of Seasonal Traditions
Canberra’s social calendar once pivoted around crisp autumn festivals, dry summer evenings and frost-bitten winter mornings.
In recent years, those rhythms have become less predictable.
The 2019 to 2020 Black Summer bushfires pushed the Australian Capital Territory into a prolonged state of hazardous air quality, with Canberra recording some of the worst air pollution levels in the world in January 2020 [1].
Outdoor events were cancelled or postponed as smoke settled over the city for weeks.
Summer festivals and open air concerts now operate with contingency plans for extreme heat and poor air quality.
The Bureau of Meteorology reports that Canberra’s average temperatures have risen by around 1.5 degrees since 1910, with more days above 35 degrees [2].
Heatwaves are lasting longer and nights are staying warmer, limiting relief after sunset.
Residents describe so called tropical nights when temperatures remain above 20 degrees, altering sleep patterns and outdoor social life.
Gardeners speak of earlier flowering and stressed deciduous trees.
Local sporting clubs reschedule matches to avoid peak heat.
The texture of memory is shifting.
Older Canberrans recall dry summer heat tempered by cool evenings.
Younger residents speak of summers defined by smoke alerts and ultraviolet warnings.
During Black Summer, smoke infiltrated buildings across the city, including Canberra Hospital, prompting concerns about indoor air safety and filtration systems .
Cultural institutions closed reading rooms and reduced hours.
The disruption was logistical but also psychological.
Summer ceased to be carefree.
Impact on Indigenous Cultural Heritage
For the Ngunnawal people, the custodians of the Canberra region, climate change is not only meteorological.
It is a disturbance in the relationship between people and Country.
Traditional seasonal knowledge is grounded in close observation of plants, animals and water cycles.
Changes in rainfall patterns and fire regimes affect the availability of bush foods, known as mayi, and the timing of cultural practices [3].
Elders have described how hotter conditions alter the growth cycles of native grasses and yams.
When species decline or shift habitat, the transmission of knowledge between generations becomes more difficult.
Fire has long been used as a cultural land management tool.
However, extreme bushfire conditions driven by climate change differ from cool cultural burns.
The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements found that climate change is increasing the intensity of fire weather across south eastern Australia .
For Indigenous communities, this represents a rupture in established protocols.
Art and storytelling are evolving to reflect landscapes marked by fire and flood.
Climate change becomes part of oral history.
It is framed not only as environmental degradation but as a weakening of reciprocal obligations between humans and Country.
At the same time, Indigenous land management knowledge is increasingly recognised in national policy debates.
Calls for greater incorporation of cultural burning practices highlight resilience as well as loss.
Threats to the “City in the Landscape” Identity
Canberra’s design, influenced by Walter Burley Griffin, integrated suburbs with bushland corridors and an expansive urban forest.
Tree canopy moderates temperature through shade and evapotranspiration, the process by which water evaporates from leaves and cools the air.
The ACT Government has committed to maintaining at least 30 percent tree canopy cover across the city by 2045 to counter the urban heat island effect [4].
Urban heat islands occur when built surfaces such as asphalt absorb and re radiate heat.
Suburbs with less canopy experience higher daytime temperatures.
Climate modelling indicates Canberra will face more frequent extreme heat days and increased bushfire risk under high emissions scenarios .
Public spaces are being redesigned with shaded playgrounds, water sensitive urban design and drought resilient plantings.
New developments incorporate higher energy efficiency standards.
Yet adaptation is uneven.
Research by the Australian Council of Social Service shows that low income households are more likely to live in poorly insulated homes and experience energy stress, defined as spending a high proportion of income on power bills [5].
Renters often lack control over upgrades such as insulation or solar panels.
As summers intensify, access to cooling becomes a marker of inequality.
The cultural image of outdoor barbecues and lakeside recreation sits uneasily beside the reality of indoor refuge during heatwaves.
Cultural Institutions as Climate Hubs
Canberra’s national institutions are confronting climate change as both subject and condition.
The National Museum of Australia has appointed a Senior Fellow in Culture and Environment to deepen research into how environmental change shapes national identity [6].
Exhibitions increasingly situate climate change within longer histories of land use and industrial development.
The Australian National University hosts climate scientists whose research informs federal policy.
Archives and libraries grapple with preserving collections amid rising temperatures and bushfire risk.
Museums and galleries serve as cooling refuges during extreme heat.
They are also forums for public debate.
Artistic responses, from photography of smoke shrouded skylines to installations using charred timber, embed climate change within cultural memory.
In this sense, Canberra is not only a site of policy but of narrative construction.
The capital becomes a lens through which Australians interpret environmental change.
Conclusion
Canberra’s identity as a city in the landscape has always relied on balance.
The balance was aesthetic and ecological.
Climate change unsettles both.
Smoke darkens the lake, heat reshapes daily life and ancient seasonal knowledge strains against altered conditions.
Policy responses, from canopy targets to emissions reductions, signal intent.
Yet adaptation will require more than infrastructure.
It demands cultural recalibration.
If the landscape continues to transform, Canberra must decide whether its identity rests in nostalgia for a cooler past or in stewardship of a hotter future.
The answer will shape not only the skyline but the stories the capital tells about itself.
- Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements Report
- Bureau of Meteorology Climate Change in Australia
- AIATSIS: Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Change
- ACT Government Urban Forest Strategy
- ACOSS Energy Stress and Climate Impacts
- National Museum of Australia Senior Fellow in Culture and Environment
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