CACE campaigner Adrian Whitehead has produced an initial response to the Darebin draft Climate Emergency Plan - Summary Document. In general the document has captured most of the key element of a climate emergency response but has made some significant omissions on the issues of diet and draw down. Our initial response is available below as a pdf. The key points are: - diet is not one of the listed top priorities - draw down is not one of the listed top priorities - the divestment statement is too narrow and only relates to fossil fuels. Please read the full response in the pdf.
After declaring a Climate Emergency and rejecting the council's previous Climate Change Action Plan, Darebin Council has now released its new draft Climate Emergency Plan for public comment.
The draft plan has had significant input from Climate Emergency campaigners in Darebin including Philip Sutton from RSTI (Research and Strategy for Transition Initiation Inc.) and Adrian Whitehead from CACE and is a significant improvement on earlier drafts. CACE will be developing a critique of the current draft shortly to assist the community with their feedback. Community which can be made online or a one of the public forums.
Darebin Councillor Susan Rennie successful got the following motion passed at Victoria's Municipal Association of Victoria state council. The council voted The forum in favour of the motion 77% to 23%.
Motion 56. Climate Change Submitting Council: Darebin City Council Motion: That the MAV recognise that: (a) we are in a state of climate emergency that requires urgent action by all levels of government, including local councils (b) human induced climate change stands in the first rank of threats to humans, civilisation and other species (c) it is still possible to restore a safe climate and prevent most of the anticipated long-term climate impacts – but only if societies across the world adopt an emergency mode of action that can enable the restructuring of the physical economy at the necessary scale and speed; (d) the MAV has a particular role in assisting local governments in this regard. At their first meeting on December the 5th 2016, at the urging of local climate groups, the newly elected councillors declared a climate emergency at their very first meeting. 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).
Critical to this occurring was the combined efforts of a number of groups over more than four years, including Save the Planet who ran climate emergency candidates in the area at each Local, State and Federal election and Darebin Climate Action Now who ran the local Climate Emergency Declaration campaign. Probably most importantly was that a group of progressive councillors were elected who were willing to discuss the climate emergency and understand that it is one of the most serious threats that faces humanity, and then instead of putting it in the too hard basket chose to take a leadership position of global significance. Luck also played its part when Adrian Whitehead from StP and CACE bumped into Cr Trent McCarthy in the council car park and discussed putting a climate emergency declaration into a motion he was proposing at their first council meeting rather than sometime later. |
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