MILDURA Council will consider declaring a climate change emergency at Wednesday’s meeting.
Community development councillor Helen Healy will put forward a motion which offers a number of recommendations, including that the council take a formal position on climate change, and write to state and federal leaders stating its declaration.
Councillors will also vote on whether the council measures greenhouse gas emissions from its services and operations, and whether it looks to develop a strategy to reduce them to zero-net levels by 2050.
As part of the motion, Cr Healy also cited a CSIRO projection that Mildura could mirror the current climate of Menindee with 15 more days per annum of above 40 degrees by 2050.
“I heard that way back about 14 years ago at a conference at Mungo about climate change and it was quoted then,” Cr Healy said.
“I guess I was like, ‘That’s so far off’, but when I saw it again in the CSIRO’s climate projections I just became so aware that time was ticking away and that we need to make a stand now and take urgent action because otherwise it will be too late down the track.”
Cr Healy hoped the council would also conduct consultation across the municipality to develop community-owned and activated climate change mitigation strategies.
Cr Healy said she was looking forward to a “healthy and honest” debate with councillors on Wednesday night.
“Whilst I’ll be talking about many things in my introduction, like climate change is real, I’ll be talking about the impact on us as councillors that we need to be seen from a reputation and legal perspective to be looking at adaptation and mitigation,” she said.
“I’ll be asking all the councillors to not so much vote from their own personal perspective, but to think about their children and their grandchildren, and to project 30 years from now whether they want to be on the right side of history.”
