A team led from Canberra is advising Australia's biggest enterprises how to adapt to climate change.
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The Climate Resilient Enterprise Mission, under the leadership of Juliet Bell, offers detailed analysis of anything from how buildings will cope with climate change to whether asphalt will melt in places where a company operates.
The mission is part of CSIRO - the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.
As leaders of about 200 countries (including Australia but not the top leaders of China or Russia) meet in Glasgow, Ms Bell will be addressing business people and policy-makers from all over the world in a virtual conference (and so one with a small carbon footprint).
In the Impact X Summit Sydney conference, she will be explaining how her CSIRO enterprise can help with the practicalities of dealing with climate change.
The four big Australian banks, for example, (Commonwealth, ANZ, Westpac and NAB) plus Macquarie Bank face new risks as global warming takes off.
They may want to change their lending policies from investing money in high-emission industries to backing greener ones, or away from housing and shopping projects near sea level. They may think twice about having a strong presence in countries subjected to more flooding or storms.
The indication is that business is starting to think harder about climate change as a real factor affecting their future profits.
Last month, three economists at the Reserve Bank of Australia warned the commercial banks lending policies might need to change.
"The considerable uncertainty about the exact magnitude of the impacts from climate change makes it essential that banks further integrate climate risk into their mortgage and business lending processes," the RBA experts wrote.
Regulators in many industries and parts of the world are increasingly putting climate change policy into rules. Businesses have to disclose what their risks are.
"These risks are related to both physical impacts and the need to transition to a net zero economy," the unit statement says.
CSIRO, as a government agency, is not allowed to make a profit - it must use any surplus for further research - so it is not clear how much Australia's profit-making businesses, in finance or mining, for example, might pay for the taxpayer-funded expertise.
But the agency is stepping in with information of use to the economy in general, information which the market in the form of profit-seeking companies fails to provide.
"Our initiative will prepare and assist Australian industry to manage impacts and risks from a changing climate, whilst identifying adaptation and transition options," the unit's mission statement says.
The strength of the unit comes from the great breadth of expertise within the CSIRO.
It stretches across the practical sciences, from engineering to biology to meteorology.
"We've been overwhelmed with requests from the private sector," Ms Bell said.
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Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
