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Climate Change

Council

Derwent Valley Council declares a climate emergency

On 28 July 2022, Derwent Valley Council voted to declare we are in a state of climate emergency that requires urgent action by all levels of government, including local councils, to mitigate the worst of impacts from occurring.

Council noted the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which confirms that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, and current commitments to address climate change are not ambitions enough to limit warming to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level – a threshold scientists believe is necessary to avoid more catastrophic impacts including biodiversity decline.

Council resolved to urgently act on the climate emergency within our capacity to do so.

In declaring a climate emergency, Derwent Valley Council recognises the significant risk that climate change poses to our community and environment. We join 110 other councils across Australia that have declared a climate emergency and are taking proactive steps to implement a climate emergency response across their operations.

In Tasmania, Hobart City Council, Launceston City Council, Kingborough Council, and Northern Midlands Council have passed climate emergency declarations.

Around the world over 2100 governments in 39 countries have declared a climate emergency including 23 national governments such as New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and the UK.

What is the climate emergency?

The climate emergency refers to catastrophic changes to the world’s climate caused by human activity and resulting in a loss of a safe climate, which threatens all life on earth.

The Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) latest report states:

Human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has caused widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people, beyond natural climate variability.

Global warming, reaching 1.5°C in the near-term, would cause unavoidable increases in multiple climate hazards and present multiple risks to ecosystems and humans.

Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur.

Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C.

Near-term actions that limit global warming to close to 1.5°C would substantially reduce projected losses and damages related to climate change in human systems and ecosystems.

Pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems. These systems transitions are unprecedented in terms of scale, but not necessarily in terms of speed, and imply deep emissions reductions in all sectors, a wide portfolio of mitigation options and a significant upscaling of investments in those options.

Under the Paris climate agreement, 197 countries including Australia have pledged to limit global temperature rise to less than 2℃ above pre-industrial levels, and ideally no more than 1.5℃.

Despite this pledge, the IPCC reports that CO2 atmospheric concentrations continue to trend upwards, and current global policies put the world on track for 2.7-3.1℃ average warming by the end of the century, which would have catastrophic consequences.

What are the projected impacts for Tasmania?

The Climate Futures for Tasmania project found that the following projected changes are likely by 2100.

Temperature

  • Tasmanian temperatures are projected to rise by about 2.9° Celsius under the high emissions scenario, and about 1.6° Celsius under the low emissions scenario.

Rainfall

  • There is no significant projected change to total annual rainfall for Tasmania under the two emissions scenarios.
  • However, significant changes are projected in the seasonal cycle. These include increases of 20 to 30 per cent in summer and autumn rainfall along the east coast and on the west coast, 15 per cent increases in winter, and 18 per cent decreases in summer rainfall.

Runoff (excess water from rain or snow melt, flowing over land)

  • Runoff is affected by changes to both rainfall and evapotranspiration (where water lost from the land surface is both evaporated and transpired by plants). By 2100 it is projected that there will be a slight increase in the State’s total amount of runoff.
  • However, runoff is projected to decrease markedly in Tasmania’s central highlands, and increase in the important agricultural regions of the Derwent Valley and the Midlands.

Frost

  • By 2100, it is projected that the incidence of frost will reduce by about half. For many areas in Tasmania, the period of frost risk is also projected to shorten from March-December (10 months) to May-October (6 months).

Other impacts we are likely to experience in Tasmania include:

  • an increase in heat waves and more hot summer days
  • extreme rainfall events
  • an increase in storm instances, which is likely to result in increased coastal erosion and inundation
  • rising sea levels of between 0.39 and 0.89 metres by 2090
  • an increase in ocean acidification levels and East Coast water temperature by up to 2-3 degrees Celsius by 2070 (relative to 1990 levels)
  • longer fire seasons and more days at the highest range of fire danger
  • river flooding in some catchments and
  • drought in some parts of the State.

How is Council responding?

Declaring a climate emergency signals a step change in Council’s approach to managing climate change risks, and how we will consider all strategic and policy work.

To ensure we are going beyond words, we have committed to developing a Climate Emergency Action Plan over the next 12 months that will detail our response to the climate emergency.

Council has resolved to urgently act on the climate emergency within our capacity to do so by committing to:

  1. Write to all State and Federal parliamentarians whose electorates include the Derwent Valley, and to the Prime Minister, the federal opposition leader, and the Tasmanian Premier, expressing Council’s position on the climate emergency and urging immediate further action at all levels of Government, including additional resources for Local Government to appropriately respond to the emergency.
  2. Conduct a greenhouse gas audit on Council operations to baseline our understanding of the sources of our GHG emissions, costs of maintaining these assets, and subsequently where mitigation actions should be targeted, including those actions which could provide cost savings to council.
  3. Engage with our community, staff, climate experts, and other stakeholders to develop a climate emergency action plan in line with the review of Councils Strategic Plan.
  4. Develop a climate emergency page on the Council website to provide our community with clear information about what council is doing in its response to the emergency, and the most effective ways community members can join us in taking climate emergency action.

Get Involved

While it can feel overwhelming at times, there’s so much we can each do to act on climate change. When we all play our part, we inspire each other and our impact grows.

Switching to clean, renewable energy is the key. All of us can take action in our homes, communities and workplaces to reduce our emissions and tackle the climate crisis.

  1. Have conversations with your family, friends and colleagues. Conversations with people we know and trust are much more likely to have an impact than things we read or watch.
  2. Host a climate conversation.
  3. Learn about the climate emergency and solutions from independent media.
  4. Work with family, neighbours, friends and work colleagues to reduce your carbon emissions through sustainable living.
  5. Make your home as energy efficient as possible and purchase green power if you can.
  6. Reduce your car use and think about sustainable alternatives.
  7. Review your banking, insurance and superannuation to ensure they are not supporting fossil fuels.
  8. Join or support local climate action groups.
  9. Take care of yourself. Facing up to the climate emergency is hard work. If you need support, seek out a professional who works in this area via the Australian Psychological Society, and check out their great resources.
  10. Work with Council to bring the climate emergency message to the broader community
  11. Let us know how we can support you to have maximum impact! Contact us by emailing dvcouncil@dvc.tas.gov.au
  12. Get involved in environmental advocacy by writing a letter to your local MP and support our call for the Tasmanian and Federal Governments to also declare a climate emergency and achieve zero emissions by 2030 though policy reform.

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