Page 4450 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 30 October 2018
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1990 levels by 2030; that is close to the new interim targets we have just adopted in the ACT.
Birmingham has a population of about one million people. It has traditionally been a heavily car dependent city and is now at a stage where it desperately needs to deal with the problems that this has caused. Its congestion and air quality issues are now so serious that it is working to implement a clean air zone. This places limits on the types of vehicles that may drive in the city, with banning of the more polluting vehicles. This is not an easy change to implement, and the council particularly needs to consider how it will impact on its more vulnerable residents.
In some ways Birmingham offers a glimpse of where fast-growing Canberra could be headed if we do not act quickly and early to build a more compact city that favours sustainable transport modes over the private car. Our transport, planning and climate policies need to ensure improved public transport, walking and cycling, and high quality urban infill and compact design.
Birmingham is excelling in several areas which we in the ACT can study and learn from: it is building “living infrastructure” like green walls and roofs, it has an interesting energy efficiency retrofitting program, and it is advanced in its use of zero-emission buses.
I also took the opportunity to travel from London to Brussels to have a number of meetings with EU and international counterparts. These meetings with the European Commission and ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability—particularly focused on learning about action being taken in Europe at a regional and city level to reach zero emissions in the next decades, and the practical steps that cities like Canberra can take. When we are part of these city networks and relationships we do not need to do it all alone; we can trade our best practice initiatives and make progress faster.
It was refreshing to see that the EU are not mired in the gross, denialist politics that infect the Australian parliament. Climate change action is generally very well accepted in the EU and even has cross-party political support. The EU are instead focused on how they can meet the climate change challenge. In fact the organisations we met with see transitioning to a carbon-free future as a voyage full of new opportunities. That is what we are focused on in the ACT as well. Interestingly, the EU makes seven-year forward budget commitments. The latest one commits 25 per cent of all new spending to climate change initiatives. That is some €32 billion.
Visiting the UK also provided the opportunity to explore some interesting initiatives related to my mental health portfolio and see how they were being implemented in a health system that is not dissimilar to our own. In London I visited the South West London Recovery College. This is a facility that takes a recovery-based approach to mental health, offering courses to people facing mental health challenges. Available courses are designed to empower people dealing with and recovering from severe and enduring mental illness and include things like: leading into healthy lifestyle; planning your own recovery; mindfulness; dealing with stress; and telling your own story. The philosophy is to help people become experts in their own self-care and wellbeing, and in this way assist them in their recovery journey.
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