Climate action every day

With your support, Greens on Council will repeat Greens Councillor Pat McGinlay’s 2019 call for Eurobodalla Shire to join 99 (and counting) local governments in Australia, and thousands world-wide, to declare a Climate Emergency.

A part of the motion Councillor McGinlay brought to council in 2019 was:

Motion that "Council acknowledges and consequently declares that we are living in a time of climate emergency that requires focused and strategic actions at the local government level, for the benefit of our whole community, in both the immediate and longer term."

This motion was not carried.

Four months later the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires raged out of control devastating parts of our shire.

We were ill-prepared for the ferocious arrival of one of the many faces of climate change on our doorstep. Our evacuation centres were completely insufficient and ill-equipped for the role demanded of them - providing safe refuge.

Critical communications infrastructure was destroyed by fire because the threat of catastrophic fires had not been addressed and these assets were unprotected.

Council's emergency management plans were not up to date and communications from council to the community were found to be wanting.

We need to be ready for the more frequent and more extreme weather events and natural disasters that climate scientists have told us are now going to a part of our lives.

We will work with Council staff to implement robust climate mitigation and adaptation plans so that our communities are safe and are resilient to the challenges of a changing climate.

Acknowledging the climate crisis and activating the Climate Resilience Plan will also mean that our shire won’t miss out on the opportunities the emerging low-carbon economy can offer.

We can embrace every opportunity to install solar and develop community power generation to increase our renewable energy capacity and decrease our reliance on imported fossil fuel energy.

We can be a community that takes action on climate every day, in every way possible.