Armidale Regional Council (ARC) would like residents who wish to help Council tackle the Climate Emergency to express their interest in joining a working group of the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee.
Climate Emergency Working Group — Terms of Reference & Expressions of Interest PDF
The recent unprecedented drought and bushfires were devastating. They 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.
Such concerns were reinforced at the National Climate Emergency Summit, Melbourne, 14-15 February 2020, which declared that our warming world is 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 NCES 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 strong feelings in our community that Council should tackle this problem. We have lots of residents with the skills and knowledge to help”, Cr Robinson said.
“Many good ideas were shared on the best ways councils can work together to solve climate problems at a special session of Melbourne’s Climate Emergency Summit, attended by about 150 councillors and staff from other councils. “Their leadership is 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, ‘Have your Say’ 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!”
Calendar subscribe
slowing the time between now & when society collapses should not be our goal! We NEED to stop/stabilise anthropogenic global warming & climate change, no slow it down! So long as we have to keep paying taxes & rates, we can do no more than we are already doing, so long as we have to use a vehicle to get to work to earn money to pay the shire council, we can not stop using our vehicle to reduce our carbon emissions! If you want to do something positive, then help change society before global warming changes society for us!