Take advantage of this great opportunity to express your interest in a Climate Emergency Working Group of ARC’s Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee!

The devastating, unprecedented droughts and bushfires demonstrate the urgent need for our region to play its part in adapting to climate change and protecting our future, and our planet’s future.

Local concerns were reinforced at the National Climate Emergency Summit, Melbourne, 14-15 February 2020, where our warming world was declared a clear threat to Australian society and civilisation. “The climate is already dangerous – in Australia and the Antarctic, in Asia and the Pacific – right around the world. The Earth is unacceptably too hot now”.

The declaration continued: “If the climate warms 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the Great Barrier Reef will likely be lost, sea levels could rise metres and massive global carbon stores such as the Amazon and Greenland, will hit tipping points, releasing millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.”

Cr Dr Dorothy Robinson, chair of ARC’s Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee, said: “We urgently need a working group to research, explore funding opportunities, encourage, and seek to implement initiatives in the short, medium and long term that Council and our community can undertake to: 1. Reduce greenhouse emissions, aiming, by 2030, for no additional contribution from our region to the global temperature rise; 2. Adapt to current and anticipated climate change impacts; 3. Reduce atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, e.g. sequester and store carbon in trees and soils; 4. Respond in other ways to the Climate Emergency, declared by Council on 23 October 2019.”

“Nearly 2,000 residents signed the petition urging Council to declare a Climate Emergency. This demonstrates the really strong desire in our community for Council to tackle this problem. We have lots of residents with the skills and knowledge to help”, Cr Robinson said.

About 150 councillors and staff from other councils shared lots of good ideas on the best ways to work together to solve climate problems at Melbourne’s Climate Emergency Summit. Three ARC Councillors and two staff considered the problem at a UNE Project Zero30 workshop last week. “It’s a great start, but we’ll need lots of help to find the best way forward for our region,” Cr Robinson said. “If you have the skills and knowledge to help, please read the information on Sustainable Living Armidale’s website (and in due course on council’s website) and express your interest. Our future and that of our planet, depends on everyone pulling together to tackle this major problem, so get cracking!”