The genesis of the idea
The original idea for climate emergency mobilisation by councils was develop by members of Save the Planet in 2013 in response to weakening state and federal government focus on the climate emergency and one of their members running for Darebin Council the year before on a climate emergency platform.
The Save the Planet working group developed the approach over a few months with Philip Sutton from the Research and Strategy for Transition Initiation Inc (RSTI) undertaking the role of lead author. One of the members of the working group went on to become the world's first Climate Emergency Office working for a government, Tiffany Harrison and continue to work in this space. You can see the original 2013 work on Council Climate Emergency Plans here https://www.voteplanet.net/emergency-plans-campaign.html
The first campaign
Getting a council to implement a Climate Emergency Plan became a focus of Save the Planets campaigning in Darebin from 2013. In 2016 this campaigning was supported by a second campaign which aimed to trigger an emergency mobilisation through the process of Governments declaring climate emergency is a similar way governments have recently declared COVID emergencies.
Key players in the Climate Emergency Declaration campaign included Margaret Hender, who came up with the idea and now runs the CEDAMIA website, Philip Sutton who continues his work developing policy and guidelines around emergency mobilisation, and Mik Adit, who maintains the Climate Emergency Declaration website and runs the Sustainable Hour blog and radio show with Tony Gleeson.
Initially aimed at state and federal governments this campaign was refocused during the 2016 Victoria local government elections and was led in Darebin by the local campaign group DCAN under the leadership of Jane Morton.
In the lead up to the 2016 Darebin council election Save the Planet candidates Adrian Whitehead and Bryony Edwards met with fellow candidates out lining the threat of global warming, the actions councils could under take in an emergency frame, while DCAN collected signed statements from candidates committing them to a declaration of a climate emergency and then promoted them on social media.
Post election it was left up to Save the Planet to continue to lobby winning candidate to declare a climate emergency and develop a climate emergency plan as DCAN had again refocussed on State and Federal politics and failed to see the potential and actual declaration could have in triggering wider action.
Save the Planet focused on elected Greens and progressive independents. The first councillor to fully grasp the idea and enthusiastically support it was Councillor Steph Amir. Lobbying contused until a majority was built who would support the passing of a motion to declare a climate emergency, however luck still played a role in that a chance meeting in a council car park ultimately resulted in the motion being put as the first motion of a the new council.
The Save the Planet working group developed the approach over a few months with Philip Sutton from the Research and Strategy for Transition Initiation Inc (RSTI) undertaking the role of lead author. One of the members of the working group went on to become the world's first Climate Emergency Office working for a government, Tiffany Harrison and continue to work in this space. You can see the original 2013 work on Council Climate Emergency Plans here https://www.voteplanet.net/emergency-plans-campaign.html
The first campaign
Getting a council to implement a Climate Emergency Plan became a focus of Save the Planets campaigning in Darebin from 2013. In 2016 this campaigning was supported by a second campaign which aimed to trigger an emergency mobilisation through the process of Governments declaring climate emergency is a similar way governments have recently declared COVID emergencies.
Key players in the Climate Emergency Declaration campaign included Margaret Hender, who came up with the idea and now runs the CEDAMIA website, Philip Sutton who continues his work developing policy and guidelines around emergency mobilisation, and Mik Adit, who maintains the Climate Emergency Declaration website and runs the Sustainable Hour blog and radio show with Tony Gleeson.
Initially aimed at state and federal governments this campaign was refocused during the 2016 Victoria local government elections and was led in Darebin by the local campaign group DCAN under the leadership of Jane Morton.
In the lead up to the 2016 Darebin council election Save the Planet candidates Adrian Whitehead and Bryony Edwards met with fellow candidates out lining the threat of global warming, the actions councils could under take in an emergency frame, while DCAN collected signed statements from candidates committing them to a declaration of a climate emergency and then promoted them on social media.
Post election it was left up to Save the Planet to continue to lobby winning candidate to declare a climate emergency and develop a climate emergency plan as DCAN had again refocussed on State and Federal politics and failed to see the potential and actual declaration could have in triggering wider action.
Save the Planet focused on elected Greens and progressive independents. The first councillor to fully grasp the idea and enthusiastically support it was Councillor Steph Amir. Lobbying contused until a majority was built who would support the passing of a motion to declare a climate emergency, however luck still played a role in that a chance meeting in a council car park ultimately resulted in the motion being put as the first motion of a the new council.
The first council in the world - Darebin
Darebin, a council located in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne, led the way in the Climate Emergency becoming the first council and government in the world to acknowledge we were in a climate emergency. This occurred after a sustained campaign by a number of local groups, including Save the Planet and Darebin Climate Action Now.
The acknowledgement occurred on December the 5th 2016, at their very first meeting the newly elected Council the Councillors recognised that we were in a Climate Emergency. The motion was:
"Council recognises that we are in a state of climate emergency that requires urgent action by all levels of government, including by local councils."
MOVED: Cr. Trent McCarthy SECONDED: Cr. Steph Amir
Link to original minutes (see 2016, December 5th, Minutes, p.46).
This was a significant step in Australia as the concept of framing global warming as an emergency had been actively opposed by major NGOs at the time. The anti emergency campaign lead by a PR company Common Cause and championed by organisations such as the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Since then, Darebin Council has begun to prepare their emergency response by adopting a range of initiatives including:
However despite being the first council in the world to acknowledge we are in a climate emergency the response to date is in no way a climate emergency response and the opportunity to lead the world as the first council to enter a full emergency has been squandered.
The response to date was characterised by:
The Darebin campaign is now refocusing on getting Darebin council to Follow this link if you want to find out more about the ongoing campaign in Darebin
The acknowledgement occurred on December the 5th 2016, at their very first meeting the newly elected Council the Councillors recognised that we were in a Climate Emergency. The motion was:
"Council recognises that we are in a state of climate emergency that requires urgent action by all levels of government, including by local councils."
MOVED: Cr. Trent McCarthy SECONDED: Cr. Steph Amir
Link to original minutes (see 2016, December 5th, Minutes, p.46).
This was a significant step in Australia as the concept of framing global warming as an emergency had been actively opposed by major NGOs at the time. The anti emergency campaign lead by a PR company Common Cause and championed by organisations such as the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Since then, Darebin Council has begun to prepare their emergency response by adopting a range of initiatives including:
- required a redrafting of their Climate Change Action plan into a Climate Emergency plan
- provided input to a federal government review of vehicle emission standards
- approved the first public electric car chargers in Darebin
- included the addressing of climate action in the first sentence of their strategic plan (December 2017)
- adopted a climate emergency plan (August 2017)
- chose to establish Climate Emergency Darebin as an entity to facilitate the implementation of the Darebin Climate Emergency Plan (February 2018)
- Climate Emergency Darebin advisory committee first meeting. (April 2018)
- Employed a Climate Emergency Officer, Tiffany Harrison to support the Climate Emergency response (June 2018)
- Undertook climate emergency training for the General Mangers and Managers (August 2018)
- Ran a Climate Emergency Conference (September 2018)
- Produced a range of public documents on the climate emergency
- Organised a large power purchase agreement with 47 (TBC)
- Prepared a board community engagement processes. (September 2019)
However despite being the first council in the world to acknowledge we are in a climate emergency the response to date is in no way a climate emergency response and the opportunity to lead the world as the first council to enter a full emergency has been squandered.
The response to date was characterised by:
- an inadequate climate emergency plan
- failure to work effectively with the expert advisory committee
- a failure to adopt the emergency response a the number one priority of council
- a failure to prioritise the climate emergency response in councils general communication
- lack of resources committed to the climate emergency response
- a failure to follow the principle of maximum protection as outline in the climate emergency policy.
The Darebin campaign is now refocusing on getting Darebin council to Follow this link if you want to find out more about the ongoing campaign in Darebin
The second dancers
Yarra Council in Melbourne was the next to acknowledgement the climate emergency on 7 Feb 2017 using the Darebin motion and represents the world's first "hollow declaration" for their lack of immediate action on the emergency post the acknowledgement.
Their lack of action was strongly criticised at the time by the local climate action group Yarra Climate Action Now (YCAN). YCAN's Ms Kerry Echberg stated in a question to Yarra council "So recognition of Climate Emergency is no longer enough: Councils, along with every level of government, must develop stronger policies and actions to attempt to deal with the problem and to protect the community, particularly its most vulnerable members, from the impacts already present."
Since then Yarra has moved forward placing a climate emergency banner on their building and has recently advertised their first officer to a climate emergency position who is expected to start in October 2019.
The next Australian acknowledgement was followed by Vincent City Council in 4 Apr 2018 thanks largely to the campaign work of Bryony Edwards from CACE, and CACE campaigners in WA.
Their lack of action was strongly criticised at the time by the local climate action group Yarra Climate Action Now (YCAN). YCAN's Ms Kerry Echberg stated in a question to Yarra council "So recognition of Climate Emergency is no longer enough: Councils, along with every level of government, must develop stronger policies and actions to attempt to deal with the problem and to protect the community, particularly its most vulnerable members, from the impacts already present."
Since then Yarra has moved forward placing a climate emergency banner on their building and has recently advertised their first officer to a climate emergency position who is expected to start in October 2019.
The next Australian acknowledgement was followed by Vincent City Council in 4 Apr 2018 thanks largely to the campaign work of Bryony Edwards from CACE, and CACE campaigners in WA.
The movement goes global
The movement's next major success was getting a number of local governments in America to declare a climate emergency the first being Hoboken New Jersey, who became the third city in the world and the first city in the U.S. to declare on the 1st of November, 2017. Hoboken was then followed by Montgomery County Council on the 5th of December 2017.
This outcome was facilitated by Philip Sutton of RSTI who managed to convince Climate Mobilization (USA) to consider local council declarations as part of their campaign strategy. Climate Mobilisation had previously been focused on a top down campaign in the hope the democrats might win the US election but the election of Donald Trump forced a reconsideration of their campaign focus.
CACE also made a small contribution by providing a briefing to a number of executive members of Climate Mobilization on our campaign up to that point in time and the information on this website.
The USA declarations, while only a few initially created the trigger for the movement to take off globally, particularly when councils such as Los Angeles and Berkeley declared.
The City of Los Angeles California, declaration was a vote for a report into City's legislative and budget analysts of the establishment of a "Climate Emergency Mobilization Department" on the 1st of May 2018. Los Angeles is proposing to establish "a Climate Emergency Mobilization Department with all powers to plan and coordinate all of the City's climate and resilience responses" including "emergency climate mitigation" and "resilience and adaptation programs". The department "would have authority over other City Departments."
In this sense it represented the fist step in the climate emergency response i.e. an acknowledgement we are in an emergency and the start of the process to consider a climate emergency response.
The next major breakthrough came in Canada in from the province of Quebec. Campaigners for a Group Mobilisation developed a climate emergency declaration and quickly spread it through hundreds of councils. The campaign was helped by a significant heat wave in Quebec which killed more than 90 people in early July 2018. You can read a history of the Quebec campaign until Feb 2019 here https://climateactionnetwork.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/DUC-2019.02.25-1.pdf . We only discovered these declaration by accident and it is unclear how much these declarations contributed to the broader campaign.
An important step for the campaign going global was the first UK declaration. This occurred in Bristol on the 13th of November 2018, and was put by Greens Councillor Carla Denyer. This declaration was the worlds You can see Carla put the motion to Bristol Council on this video.
The dedications spread quickly across Britain largely pushed by sitting Greens councillors and supported by XR campaigners.
CACE helped push council declaration in Europe by undertaking an 8 week tour in early 2019 Jan to mid March visiting the UK, Austria, Germany Switzerland, Hungary, Chez Republic, Finland, and Sweden. We were trying to help spread the declaration but also help people understand the importance of going into emergency mode.
For an up to date list of the councils who have declared and more examples of motions by councils that have declared please go to the CEDAMIA website. Margaret Hender at CEDAMIA has been critical in maintaining this list, a role that has been undertaken solely by volunteers.
This outcome was facilitated by Philip Sutton of RSTI who managed to convince Climate Mobilization (USA) to consider local council declarations as part of their campaign strategy. Climate Mobilisation had previously been focused on a top down campaign in the hope the democrats might win the US election but the election of Donald Trump forced a reconsideration of their campaign focus.
CACE also made a small contribution by providing a briefing to a number of executive members of Climate Mobilization on our campaign up to that point in time and the information on this website.
The USA declarations, while only a few initially created the trigger for the movement to take off globally, particularly when councils such as Los Angeles and Berkeley declared.
The City of Los Angeles California, declaration was a vote for a report into City's legislative and budget analysts of the establishment of a "Climate Emergency Mobilization Department" on the 1st of May 2018. Los Angeles is proposing to establish "a Climate Emergency Mobilization Department with all powers to plan and coordinate all of the City's climate and resilience responses" including "emergency climate mitigation" and "resilience and adaptation programs". The department "would have authority over other City Departments."
In this sense it represented the fist step in the climate emergency response i.e. an acknowledgement we are in an emergency and the start of the process to consider a climate emergency response.
The next major breakthrough came in Canada in from the province of Quebec. Campaigners for a Group Mobilisation developed a climate emergency declaration and quickly spread it through hundreds of councils. The campaign was helped by a significant heat wave in Quebec which killed more than 90 people in early July 2018. You can read a history of the Quebec campaign until Feb 2019 here https://climateactionnetwork.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/DUC-2019.02.25-1.pdf . We only discovered these declaration by accident and it is unclear how much these declarations contributed to the broader campaign.
An important step for the campaign going global was the first UK declaration. This occurred in Bristol on the 13th of November 2018, and was put by Greens Councillor Carla Denyer. This declaration was the worlds You can see Carla put the motion to Bristol Council on this video.
The dedications spread quickly across Britain largely pushed by sitting Greens councillors and supported by XR campaigners.
CACE helped push council declaration in Europe by undertaking an 8 week tour in early 2019 Jan to mid March visiting the UK, Austria, Germany Switzerland, Hungary, Chez Republic, Finland, and Sweden. We were trying to help spread the declaration but also help people understand the importance of going into emergency mode.
For an up to date list of the councils who have declared and more examples of motions by councils that have declared please go to the CEDAMIA website. Margaret Hender at CEDAMIA has been critical in maintaining this list, a role that has been undertaken solely by volunteers.
Taking the next step
Today over 1800 councils and governments around the world, inspired by Darebin's lead, have acknowledged that we are in a climate emergency.
Many have used their declaration or acknowledgment to dive arrange of positive initiatives across the spectrum of action from mitigation to resilience. You can see a small sample of the innovative actions councils have undertaken on the CEDAMIA website.
But is of December 2020 none that we know have have taken the next step and moved into full emergency mode.
CACE is now focused on getting our first councils into a full emergency mode, in the belief that this will drive action by higher levels of government.
It will take a concerted climate emergency mobilisation by all levels of government if we are to have any chance of reversing global warming at this late stage and preventing a catastrophic 3-4 degrees of warming.
CACE has develop a guide for councils seeking to take this final step here.
Many have used their declaration or acknowledgment to dive arrange of positive initiatives across the spectrum of action from mitigation to resilience. You can see a small sample of the innovative actions councils have undertaken on the CEDAMIA website.
But is of December 2020 none that we know have have taken the next step and moved into full emergency mode.
CACE is now focused on getting our first councils into a full emergency mode, in the belief that this will drive action by higher levels of government.
It will take a concerted climate emergency mobilisation by all levels of government if we are to have any chance of reversing global warming at this late stage and preventing a catastrophic 3-4 degrees of warming.
CACE has develop a guide for councils seeking to take this final step here.
