Yarra Climate Action Now!

Yarra Climate Action Now, together with several other climate action groups across Melbourne have launched the Get the Picture Kev! visual petition. The photos will be collected at markets and other events, and presented to Kevin Rudd later in the year.

To host the cardboard cut-out and collect photos please contact us on YarraCAN@gmail.com.

To see media coverage of the petition in the Melbourne Leader, click here.

To see all the photos we have uploaded so far click here.

Kev's appearances in May 2009 will be:
Saturday 9 May at the Collingwood Children's Farm farmers market
Sunday 17 May at the Giant Human Sign at St Kilda Beach
Saturday 23 May at the Abbotsford Convent farmers market

That's all there is to say, the photos speak for themselves!



















For more photos, click here.

The debate around climate change solutions contains a lot of numbers that can be confusing to those not literate in climate science. Here we give a brief explanation of the measures of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The make-up of the atmosphere is measured in parts per million (ppm). This represents the number of molecules of a certain gas in one million molecules of air. The levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are measured in ppm of carbon dioxide (CO2), or in ppm of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e).

The measure of carbon dioxide equivalent represents all the greenhouse gases, converted into their equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. The Kyoto protocol lists six greenhouse gases (or types of gases) that cause global warming, these are CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons. All of these have different warming effects. For example, one molecule of methane has 25 times the warming effect of one molecule of CO2 over 100 years.

For the last 650,000 years, CO2 levels have ranged from 190-280ppm. In the last 10,000 years up until the industrial revolution, the CO2 concentration was 280ppm.

Currently, due to human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels, intensive agriculture, and land clearing, the CO2 level is just under 390ppm, and the CO2-e level is around 455ppm. Both measures are continuing to rise rapidly. These are significant increases from pre-industrial levels at speeds not seen in natural systems.

So what level of CO2 should we aim for in order to avoid runaway climate change and the subsequent catastrophic collapse of the global ecology, economy and society?

A report released in April 2008 by 9 climate scientists from around the world including James Hansen from NASA, argued that to stabilise the global climate, the arctic sea ice must re-form to levels like those 25 years ago, and for this to happen, CO2 levels have to return to 300-325ppm from the 390ppm they are at today. Also, Professor John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany said in September 2008 that 330ppm CO2 and above was unlikely to be safe and that 270-320ppm CO2 was probably a safe concentration.

Due to this scientific evidence and opinion, Yarra Climate Action Now, together with 150 other climate action groups from across Australia are demanding that the world set a long-term stabilisation target of 300ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, in order to reduce the risk of runaway climate change. This is well below current levels, which will mean not only de-carbonising our economy, but also actively removing carbon from the atmosphere. The science is not yet clear as to how fast this target needs to be reached.

Unfortunately, the Australian Government’s policy is still lagging well behind the climate science. The 5-15% emissions reductions by 2020 on 2000 levels set out in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme if adopted globally would set the world on a course towards 550ppm CO2-e with unimaginable consequences for humanity.

Even the preferred option of 450ppm CO2-e, recommended by the Garnaut Review and accepted by the Rudd Government (associated with a 25% emissions reduction by 2020) would, (according to Garnaut himself!!) only give us a 46% chance of avoiding 2 degrees of warming and thereby runaway climate change (some scientists say that even 2 degrees of warming could set off feedback loops that result in runaway climate change).

If we want a safe climate future, then we must aim towards 300ppm CO2. To aim for anything more places the lives of current and future generations at an unacceptable risk.

Below is YCAN's submission to the Yarra City Council's budget process for 2009-10. It is currently being considered by the council. If you have any feedback or would like to support the submission, we need to hear from you - email us at YarraCAN@gmail.com. We would also encourage you to write to the Yarra councillors to express your support for the submission.


YCAN Submission to the City of Yarra Council

Yarra Climate Action Now (YCAN) is a fast-growing community-based organisation committed to lobby all levels of government into taking immediate action to reduce Australia’s emissions. We currently have 180 plus members and are linked to an Australia-wide climate action network which consists of around 150 grassroots groups like ours.

We seek Council’s endorsement of our group.

Climate change is the biggest challenge facing our society. Scientists agree that without immediate and drastic action the devastating affects of a changing climate will be unstoppable. Federal and State governments are not doing enough. It’s up to local government to set the example.

The City of Yarra is a diverse municipality, with a mix of public and private housing, rental properties, as well as many restaurants, cafes, small businesses and light industrial facilities. There are opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint of all these sectors.

YCAN feels strongly that the City of Yarra Council should be a leader in sustainable local government, but instead Yarra is lagging behind other Victorian municipalities such as Moreland, Port Phillip, Manningham, Maribyrnong, and Mt Alexander shire in terms of actions. Council needs to set firm goals for 2020 with clear interim targets.

YCAN will act as an independent eye on Council, ensuring that councillors honour their election promises to make Yarra a sustainable city. Councillors have pledged to make all Council operations carbon neutral. YCAN wants to see that goal extended to the whole municipality. We are sure that residents of the City of Yarra will support this and work together for a Zero Carbon Yarra by 2020. The time for endless strategy documents is past. It is time for action.

The move towards a Zero Carbon Yarra requires a partnership between Council and residents. We believe that communication between Council and residents must be improved to effectively inform and engage the whole community in the process. YCAN wants to participate in this partnership and is ready to assist in the communication process.

YCAN calls on the Yarra Council to implement the following list of urgent actions and include funding in the 2009 budget:

1. Set up a community sustainable-action forum.
The City of Yarra needs an organisation, independent from Council, to help households, businesses and community groups reduce their emissions. Programs should include free energy and water audits for all houses (including rental properties); retrofit of energy saving light globes, shower heads and draft stoppers; advice on ways to further improve energy efficiency; bulk purchase programs for solar hot water and photovoltaic panels.

2. Harvest stormwater from street runoff for watering street trees and parklands.
Our trees are vitally important, but they are under stress and dying due to drought. At the same time urban waterways are under stress from the quantity of runoff from paved surfaces and buildings. We will continue to have less rainfall but more severe storm events. We call on Council to capture rainfall locally, build storage tanks, wetlands in parks, create permeable surfaces to carry stormwater directly to trees, and utilise technology for pumping up water from the Merri Creek and the Yarra River when they are in flood (such as the water-driven Hi-Ram pump, which requires no external power source).

3. Fast-track town planning processes for residential permits which demonstrate strong environmentally sustainable design features.
Most town planning applications in the City of Yarra take 8-12 months to be determined. YCAN calls on the Council to appoint an additional full-time town planner so that planning applications demonstrating strong environmentally sustainable design features receive priority (every second application handled by town planning staff could be an ESD application). Reducing the time taken in town planning applications would cost Council very little but offers huge savings to building owners. This would offset the expense of "green" features in the buildings. This method is being used successfully overseas in the US and Canada. City of Yarra could lead the way by being the first municipality in Australia to implement this strategy.

4. Establish one-stop recycling drop-off station(s) within the municipality for recyclables that cannot currently be put in yellow bins.
One of Council’s goals is to reduce the waste stream that goes to landfill. Many recyclable items are going into domestic waste bins because of a lack of local options for disposal. We need a Byteback-style depot for drop-off of e-waste for components to be recycled and reused. Depots could also have bins for batteries, mobile phones, fluorescent light globes, TV sets (for lead recycling), sports shoes, corks and a drop-off point for small quantities of green waste. A large amount of green waste goes into the domestic waste bins because many Yarra residents have small gardens that require regular pruning producing amounts of green waste which they feel are too small for curbside collection.

5. Encourage the use of sustainable transport and prioritise non-vehicular traffic.
Remove some curb-side car-parking spaces and replace them with multi-bike parking areas and additional street trees. Examples already exist outside Spensley St Primary School in Clifton Hill and Lygon Court in Carlton. There should be bike parks like this in every street and retail area. To make cycling and walking easy, pleasant and safe, there needs to be an audit of routes to identify and fix gaps, obstructions and lack of safe crossings. We need a clear map of cycling and walking routes in the municipality.

6. Establish a Community Environmental Advisory Committee to provide professional and community input to Council.
Council must seek advice from industry professionals and knowledgeable members of the community in order to develop sound environmental policy and strategy. To achieve our goals we need to investigate ground-breaking programs that are being used in communities around the world, such as community compost collection, local electricity generation, and a food plan to maximise local food production, such as using fruit trees as street trees and encouraging food production on public and private land.

7. Advocate for a safe climate future.
While local government is an important player in climate change action, other levels of government have their hands on crucial levers, such as the energy and tax system. Yarra City Council must pass resolutions expressing their support for science-based targets and robust policies from the State and Federal Governments. It must also actively advocate for the Municipal Association of Victoria and the Victorian Local Governance Association to do the same. A first step would be a motion condemning the Federal Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme as being wholly inadequate (as Newcastle City Council and Canada Bay City Council already have).

First published in The Age 30 March 2009, by Guy Pearse

IMAGINE the scene — you have had a bad day at work, the kids have the flu, and you have just got some nuisance caller off the phone. There's a knock on the door. "Hi, I'm from Alcoa," says a slickly dressed man with a Texan drawl. "We're wonderin' whether you'd care to give us and our fellow emission intensive trade exposed companies $500 a year until 2020 and beyond so we can have free emission permits?" You slam the door in his face.

Then there's another knock on the door, similar bloke with an Oxbridge accent. "I'm from International Power," he says. "Terribly sorry, old chap, but coal-fired power stations will be worth less once emissions trading comes in, so generators are charging all households a once-off fee of $455 to maintain their value for our shareholders." You tell him where to stick his bill.

Then there's yet another knock on the door. "Yah, hi thar," he says with a bitzer foreign accent — Swiss maybe, with some South African speckled through it. 'We're from the Xstrata, and we'd like some cheques from you for the coal industry: $93 to cushion us from the impact of emissions trading; $62 for new infrastructure to double coal exports; and $62 for work on 'clean coal technology' — $220 all up should cover it for now." You threaten to call the police unless he leaves the property.

...to continue reading the article, click here.