Page 4449 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 30 October 2018
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
business in the zero-emission vehicle sector to maximise job creation and economic development in the territory.
In the days leading up to the Zero Emission Vehicle Summit, I was able to attend a number of meetings and site visits. I met with Dame Julia King, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, who is the chair of the UK’s subcommittee on climate change adaptation.
The UK, like Australia and like the ACT, is already feeling the impacts of a warming climate. The UK’s climate and environment are quite different from those of the ACT, of course. Still, in many ways the climate change impacts for which they are preparing are the same; they are already seeing significant heatwaves that are threatening people’s health, and they are preparing for more extreme weather events.
In other ways their challenges are quite different and unique. The UK rarely worries about bushfires, as we do, but they are now increasingly experiencing bog fires. The UK is home to vast amounts of natural peat bog, and the increased temperatures are now causing these to catch alight. It is a strange and previously very rare event which does not tend to cause a threat, but does quickly destroy an already rapidly diminishing natural soil resource. At current rates of destruction, primarily erosion, they think their peat bogs have only 40 more years of life left.
The UK is already seeing sea level rise that is impacting coastal communities, and a number of towns are planning for how they defend the town, with seawalls, for example. Smaller, isolated towns face a troubling utilitarian quandary, as building structures to defend from sea level rise is very expensive.
Like the ACT, the UK is looking at various measures in its cities to adapt to climate change. It is getting hotter, so buildings need to be designed to deal with heat, something the UK previously rarely thought about. Cities, too, will need more green spaces and living infrastructure to help combat the urban heat island effect. That is something I think that the ACT can lead in. We are already the bush capital, and our first living infrastructure strategy is in development.
As with anyone who is looking at climate change, the message from the climate adaptation committee chair is: “Take action.” Governments need to take real action and make real commitments—serious ones, science-based ones—and they need to do it now. It is not a surprise. The UK are literally seeing floodwaters rise and cost lives and millions of dollars. Their temperature rise charts are predicting temperature rises in the range of four to five degrees in parts of the UK in the next 50 years.
The action message is a good and important message for us as the ACT finalises its next action plan to take us to zero net emissions by 2045, and a reminder that adaptation strategies must be an important component of this plan.
In Birmingham, I met with Councillor Waseem Zaffar, Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment for Birmingham City Council, to draw lessons from how Birmingham is tackling climate change and promoting the uptake of zero-emission vehicles. Birmingham is aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 65 per cent on
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video