The architect of a multi-billion-dollar water fix centred on building Australia's biggest desalination plant now says Melbourne should harvest stormwater.
Former Victorian water minister, turned sustainability boffin, John Thwaites, says stormwater is a cheap, green water source that has been underutilised.
Almost two years after quitting politics, Mr Thwaites, who is now chair of Monash University's Sustainability Institute, has implied that the government may have got it wrong.
"Stormwater is a new source of water that has been underutilised to date," Mr Thwaites says in a Victorian government green paper on climate change.
"Stormwater harvesting systems can function with very low energy use and provide relatively low cost water."
The desalination plant - announced in June 2007, when Mr Thwaites was water minister - will cost more than $3 billion and use 90 megawatts of power a year.
The green paper, released on Wednesday, sets the parameters for a low carbon future.
It warns that bushfires, like the devastating Black Saturday blazes, will become more frequent and severe.
Extreme fire days are forecast to rise by up to 230 per cent in the next 40 years, prompting calls for catastrophic fire danger warnings.
"Such is the impact of climate change on fire risk that CSIRO models highlight the need to change the Fire Danger Index to include two new categories of risk, recognising very extreme and catastrophic fire conditions," Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin said in the report.
The green paper predicts days over 35 degrees will rise and rainfall will decrease by a possible 11 per cent on 1990 levels by 2070.
It also warns of infrastructure in coastal areas being inundated by rising sea levels and of a tourism downturn at the state's ski resorts.
Despite the dire forecasts, Victoria will continue its reliance on brown-coal fired power for at least the next 10 years, with green energy alternatives still decades away.
As Victoria moves towards a more sustainable future, the report warns of difficult fiscal times ahead.
Most at risk are disadvantaged households and those in the Latrobe Valley power hub, in the state's southeast, which derives about 10 per cent of jobs from the coal-fired power industry.
Premier John Brumby downplayed the impact of carbon busting on livelihoods, saying the scheme would create more jobs not fewer.
But he admitted that would not necessarily be the case in the Latrobe Valley.
"I believe that we'll come through this process with more jobs not less, that is my absolute fundamental belief and that will be true for the state as a whole," he told reporters.
Brotherhood of St Laurence executive director Tony Nicholson said government assistance was needed to offset the rising costs of basic necessities for battlers.
"Low income and disadvantaged Victorians will be extremely vulnerable to the rising energy, food and water prices which follow from these climatic changes," he says in the report.
"At the same time, the changing climate is likely to put pressure on particular regions and industries with resulting job losses - just as the drought is doing now."
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