The government clearly accepts that climate change is happening. That might not have been the case under past Coalition governments. Former prime minister Tony Abbott was highly sceptical about climate science before, during and after his term in office. Not so with the current prime minister - there's no hint of rejection of climate science in any of the budget papers or ministerial press releases.

The question is, given climate change is happening, should we put more of our efforts into adapting to or trying to prevent or ameliorate the changes? The two approaches are not alternatives: we can do both simultaneously. The budget does. What is interesting is the relative priority each receives.

The announcements on reducing emissions align with the government slogan, repeated in the Treasurer's budget speech, "technology not taxes". They promise an additional $1.2 billion to "establish Australia at the forefront of low emissions technology". The components include:

There's not much here: many of the initiatives are spread over a decade, whether the money will actually be spent is uncertain, and some of the technologies are disputed.

There is also funding of $58.6 million over four years for gas projects, under the heading "Advancing Australia's gas fired recovery". In a win for transparency this is not being put forward (although gas advocates often do) as a transition to renewables. Natural gas is less polluting than coal but is still a fossil fuel that adds to greenhouse gas emissions.

Post-budget the government announced it was committing up to $600 million to a gas fired power plant in the Hunter Valley. Because it was done through the government-owned Snowy Hydro corporation this commitment will not hit the budget bottom line (except in the unlikely case that a future government feels it has to subsidise the venture). It is though consistent with the directions outlined in the budget.

There's far more in the budget about dealing with the impacts of climate change. There is $209.7 million to establish a new agency, the Australian Climate Service, to "better inform how we build climate resilience and respond to natural disasters". There is additional funding for Emergency Management Australia for natural disaster preparedness. New programs including Preparing Australia "will provide $895.5 million to improve long-term resilience...and support the ongoing recovery needs of communities impacted by the 2019-20 bushfires". There is both a direct $40 million subsidy program and a $10 billion government insurance guarantee to help northern Australia deal with the risk of cyclones. The budget adds a further $103 million to the government's $5 billion Future Drought Fund to help farmers prepare for future droughts.

People who argue there is no link between the increasing frequency of natural disasters and climate change might quibble with including cyclone risk measures or disaster preparedness in the list. They are a small and dwindling minority; the evidence for the link is overwhelming.

What it adds up to is that the government is concentrating as much or more effort on adapting rather than tackling the root causes of climate change. The budget speech indicates the government's goal is to get to net zero emissions, "as soon as we possibly can, preferably by 2050" - but in the meantime it is putting increasing amounts of funding into dealing with the climate impacts.

Different views will abound on why. Climate change policy is notoriously difficult for Australian governments - it helped bring down four of our last five prime ministers. Labor lacks the capacity to challenge the government's technology narrative while its own policy remains equivocal in the face of internal critics such as Joel Fitzgibbon. Vested interests and politics play a part, as they do with all budgets.

Putting more effort into adaptation may indeed be a rational strategy in light of scientific advice (repeated regularly over each of the past four decades) that climate change has passed a point of no return. If we inevitably face the prospect of several degrees of global warming then we have no choice but to adapt. Pessimists thus argue we should bunker down to await the end as best we can; optimists believe we should at least contribute to making the worst case less worse. In the end it comes down to choices a government makes on priorities and resource allocation.

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