“The climate emergency message will be unstoppable,” climate action campaigner Adrian Whitehead told listeners of The Sustainable Hour on 94.7 The Pulse in Geelong on 18 July 2018, as he talked about the significance of the work Darebin City Council currently is doing to address the climate emergency:
“In Darebin, we’ve got a climate emergency response for the first time rolling out at government level. We are getting a momentum and actual, real change happening. But we need to start getting other councils to do the same. Because once that communication starts pumping out from Darebin, once we start reaching out to the ethnic groups and the churches, through volunteers from the community working hand in hand with council to get a combined approach, I think the climate emergency message will be unstoppable.”
~ Adrian Whitehead in The Sustainable Hour
Councils in Banyule, Moreland, Yarra and Port Melbourne, as well as in New South Wales and Western Australia are currently taking steps to follow Darebin City Council’s lead.
In the podcast interview, Adrian Whitehead mentions Philip Sutton who is the co-author of Climate Code Red and who authored the ‘Local First Implementation’ strategy that the American climate action group The Climate Mobilization is heavily utilising for their City by City strategy.
Adrian Whitehead organised and hosted a seminar about how Darebin City Council adopted a community-wide climate emergency plan at the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne in February, where Philip Sutton, two councillors from Darebin and Adrian’s partner Bryony participated in the panel.
You can listen to the presentations and read more about the event here:
Adrian Whitehead co-founded Beyond Zero Emissions, the political party Save the Planet, and Community Action for the Climate Emergency (CACE).
He has been part of the group of local residents in the Melbourne suburb Darebin who have inspired and helped its City Council create the world‘s first local government Climate Emergency Plan. In September the first Climate Emergency Conference is held in Darebin.
“If you are spending more money on coffee or hair dressing than acting on climate change, take a good hard look at yourself. Get a grip!”
~ Adrian Whitehead in The Sustainable Hour
Adrian Whitehead: “We have a plan”
– and it begins with local government
Listen to The Sustainable Hour no. 225 with Adrian Whitehead:
The suburb that rose to the climate emergency challenge
The Sustainable Hour interviewed Darebin City Council mayor Kim Le Cerf about the plan in April 2017:
Thought leadership: How local councils crunch the climate stalemate
Darebin Council’s Climate Emergency Conference
Darebin Council is convening a Climate Emergency Conference which will bring together people and organisations with shared concerns for our environment to demonstrate leadership in climate emergency action. The aim of this conference is to identify strategic action and opportunities for collaboration in addressing the climate emergency.
The climate emergency conference will also create opportunities to build collaborations for advocacy and influence across government, industries and organisations that have the greatest power to take urgent and appropriate action to respond to the climate emergency.
The conference will include a series of plenary addresses focusing on scientific understandings, social dynamics, learnings from disaster management and corporate responsibility, and will build a detailed and complex picture of the challenges we face.
Through the themes of communication and engagement and taking action, the conference will also explore issues of how we communicate and identify innovative ways to engage and empower people to take meaningful and long-lasting action in response to the climate emergency.
Your participation will significantly contribute to the development of a collective understanding of climate emergency, and the range and scope of advocacy and practical responses required to restore a safe climate. It is only through a collaborative, partnership approach that we can collectively scale up our action and advocacy to the degree required to avoid catastrophic climate change is required.
A full program of events will be available soon on Council’s website.
Tuesday 11 September 2018 at 8:30am to Wednesday 12 September at 5:00pm
Northcote Town Hall, 189 High Street, Northcote, VIC 3070, Australia
#RESEARCH:
Victorians concerned about climate change
How concerned Victorians are about climate change was recently reported by Wallis Research, a Victorian-based company with a strong reputation for expertise in conducting social and government research. A total of 3,333 Victorians took part in Wallis Research’s survey.
“The survey sample was carefully designed and controlled to provide results that can be projected to the broader population with confidence. The survey estimates have a high level of statistical reliability. At the 95% level of confidence, the margin of error associated with the sample of 3,300 is plus or minus 2.5%.”
» View the full report at: www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/socialresearch
Where we are at with the climate emergency today
Climatic clippings increasingly ‘crimatic’: critical, criminal and dramatic
Mik Aidt compiled this separate ‘climatic clippings’ blogpost about the climate change topics:
Climatic clippings increasingly ‘crimatic’: critical, criminal and dramatic
#CLIMATEEMERGENCY #UN:
UN security council considers ‘cycle of conflict and climate disaster’
“Fragile countries are in danger of becoming stuck in a cycle of conflict and climate disaster. Where resilience is eroded, communities may be displaced and exposed to exploitation.”
~ Amina Mohammed, UN deputy chief and a former environment minister for Nigeria
More about what each country representative in the Council said at the UN meeting on www.reliefweb.int
» Climate Change News – 12 July 2018:
UN security council considers ‘cycle of conflict and climate disaster’
“Sweden chaired the influential body’s first session focusing on climate change in seven years, calling for international coordination to address the risks.”
#CLIMATEEMERGENCY #FAITH:
Act now to avoid turning our world into chaos
The Pope’s War on Carbon
Pope Francis, top leader of the Catholic church, hosted the climate conference in Vatican City last week, ‘Saving our Common Home and the Future of Life on Earth’, and once again he called for climate action: “We must act now if we want to avoid turning our world into chaos,” he told the attendees.
It is not the first time we hear this – find much more on the topic of Catholic inaction and failure to lead the community in this blogpost: www.climatesafety.info/catholicwakeupcall – but new reports now confirm that the struggle to save our civilisation is a tight race against time.
“If industry and society don’t change, we’re headed down a dark path”
“If industry and society as a whole don’t change, we’re headed down a dark path. Curious exactly where that path leads? Researchers around the world are analyzing just that — analyzing current data to put together projections of future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and their impact on the climate.
Using estimations on future population levels, technology, economic activity, and social values, analysts try to reasonably predict “Shared Socioeconomic Pathways” (SSPs) and create carbon budget, global temperature, oil usage and energy demand, sea level rise, and carbon bubble scenarios. Here, we’ve created a list of important scenarios and what researchers say we should expect if we don’t make a drastic change.”
» CleanTechnica – 17 July 2018:
Climate Change Scenarios: An Updated Summary Of Climate Change, Sea Level Rise & Carbon Bubble Predictions
There are 11 wildfires in the Arctic Circle. This is climate change in action. Yet @TurnbullMalcolm & @JoshFrydenberg continue to promote the fossil fuel industry. We need #ClimateActionNow ! #ClimateImpactsVic https://t.co/LkFSPCxDYZ
— Act on Climate Vic (@ActOnClimateVic) July 18, 2018
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Climate change related events in the pipeline
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8 September: Rise for Climate – global event
Glen from 350.org wrote: “By mobilising on 8 September 2018 we will set the bar for what local commitments need to deliver: an immediate end to new fossil fuel projects and a fast, fair and just transition to 100% renewable energy. We don’t need to wait for national governments to act. Rise For Climate is bringing together hundreds of partner organisations, and local organisers from all corners of the globe. This is what our movement is great at – local action, everywhere.
Organise a Rise For Climate action in your town on 8 September, and demand that local leaders commit to building a fossil free world for all.
We look forward to working together for a massive 8 September!”
11-12 September: Darebin’s Climate Emergency conference
in Northcote Town Hall, Melbourne
12-14 September: Global Climate Action Summit in California
» Website: www.globalclimateactionsummit.org
» Affiliate events
Virtually attend the summit: Live stream the summit program on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter
14 September: Pathway to Paris concert
in San Francisco, California
18-19 October: Cities Power Partnership National Summit
in New South Wales
Climate Council will be bringing councils together for their first ever national summit on 18-19 October 2018, Kiama, New South Wales. The Partnership program is now powered by 70 councils and 250 towns and cities representing 8 million Australians.