Yarra City Council recognises that the climate emergency presents an unprecedented challenge – both globally and locally.
Our planet’s climate is already too hot, with dangerous heatwaves, droughts, storms and flooding becoming more intense and destructive. Global heating is now considered by the world’s leading climate scientists and many others to be a ‘climate emergency’. Transformational change is needed across our society and economy to rapidly reduce carbon emissions and draw down emissions from the atmosphere in order to restore a safe climate. It requires large-scale action across all levels of government, businesses and the community to both cut carbon emissions and adapt to living on a hotter planet. The major transition ahead needs to occur in a fair and socially equitable way. The most vulnerable people have typically made the least contribution to the problem and often have less capacity to respond and cope with the impacts.
Yarra Council is ‘building back better’ to act on the climate crisis and enable recovery from the pandemic through delivering our Climate Emergency Plan. They will:
- ‘Get off gas’ by transitioning all Council’s buildings to be all electric, powered by renewable energy by 2030
- Transition all Council’s fleet to electric vehicles powered by renewable energy by 2025
- Speed up the roll out of cycling infrastructure by trialling temporary bike lanes to inform permanent upgrades
- Create climate adapted green spaces by harvesting more stormwater to irrigate our parks
- Introduce zero carbon standards for new commercial and residential developments, working with other government partners to amend the planning scheme
- Enable our community to cut their carbon emissions, lead grassroots projects and collectively push for the urgent climate action we need
- Help residents and businesses take up renewable energy and facilitate solar installations
- Advocate for urgent climate action by other levels of government, including strong renewable energy and carbon emissions reduction targets, along with policy and economic measures that both enable recovery from the pandemic and drive emissions reductions
