Climate Change has a substantiated number of hazards upon both natural and societal systems. Impacts on coastal ecosystems are particularly relevant as these are exposed to sea level rise and changing coastal processes. It is therefore safe to assume that appropriate management of natural assets would reduce vulnerability of natural and therefore societal systems to climate change. In Australia, Natural Resource Management (NRM) bodies are funded for the sustainable planning and management of ecosystems within catchments or bioregions, including those in the coastal zone. Our study examines how the current NRM plans of case study regions; Northern Rivers and South East Queensland account for climate change and how coastal and marine targets included in those plans might be impacted by climate change. After preliminary interviews with NRM planners, a vulnerability matrix was used to assess the exposure, sensitivity adaptive capacity, impacts and potential of climate change drivers on identified NRM planning items and issues. In general, the vulnerability of these systems was found to be largely medium to high being coral and coastlines most vulnerable. The systems in general were considered to only have an medium adaptive capacity; this is largely due to human development and interference impacting upon the systems’ natural adaptive capacity. This, in turn, may impact upon the achievability of the targets outlined by the case study regions and over time, upon the human systems that rely upon these natural resources. Possible adaptation pathways were finally identified to decrease the vulnerability of these systems.