Mount Alexander Shire played host to a ‘Regional Zero Emissions Forum’ at the Castlemaine Town Hall last Thursday March 16.
The event was held by the Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance, Greater Bendigo Climate Collaboration and the City of Greater Bendigo.
The free event explored local opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the region, and heard addresses from a raft of key speakers include Annika Kearton from the Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance and Richard Denniss from the Australia Institute, as well as Mount Alexander Shire resident Bill Grant from Federation University. Others included representatives from Renew, Clean Energy Council, SEA Electric, and Cassinia Environmental.
Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance Executive Officer Annika Kearton told the Mail they had a wonderful response to the forum with more than 140 people in attendance at the day long event which featured more than 12 speakers on a range of topics, panel discussions and a brainstorming session.
Ms Kearton said it was a terrific opportunity to learn about the work already taking place across the 13 councils covered by the alliance spanning across the Loddon, Campaspe, Mallee and Grampians regions and also to discuss areas of need and plans to take further action moving forward.
“We know we are in the last decade where we can make a real difference. A lot of the discussion focused on energy equity and making sure everyone, including low income earners and renters are in a position to make changes to their homes to reduce their emissions,” Ms Kearton said.
The three main areas of discussion were energy, transport, and agriculture.
“The discussion around transport was particularly exciting. Transport is responsible for 18 per cent of our emissions. While many people are moving to electric cars the modelling is telling us this will not be enough. We need to look at improving public transport and active transport in our regions so people can be confident to leave their cars at home. Many felt the Commonwealth Games would provide a great opportunity to harness the need for improvements in public transport infrastructure in regional Victoria,” she said.
Ms Kearton said it was fantastic to hear from local student and School Strike for Climate campaigner Arlo Foyn-Hill who urged forum attendees to bring emissions down as much as possible as soon as possible for his and future generations’ sake, and DJAARA project manager Oli Moraes who offered a First Nations perspective on the issue.
“It’s important that all voices are heard as part of this discussion including our young people and First Nations people who have such a wealth of knowledge to offer about managing our environment,” she said.
“At the end of the day we want to scale up projects that are working and make our climate response bigger, faster and fairer,” Ms Kearton said.
City of Greater Bendigo Manager Climate Change and Environment Michelle Wyatt said the forum was really all about sharing information and making sure everyone was on the same page moving forward.
“Our panellists raised a lot of issues and options and we workshopped these to get our priorities down on paper and look at the key things we want to achieve are moving forward,” Ms Wyatt said.
“It is about looking at what is working – such as one really amazing local retrofiting project – and looking how we can expand that right across the entire region. It is also important that we work together and that all levels of government – local, state and federal are also working together on this,” she said.
Ms Wyatt said a report will be prepared following the event and will help inform Regional Development Victoria, which funded the event, about the outcomes and help organisations to implement and advocate for priority projects moving forward.
At this week’s council meeting Mayor Rosie Annear spoke of attending the forum and the large number of people passionate about tackling climate change and reducing emissions that attended.
“I learnt an awful lot in the time I was there,” said Mayor Annear.
“Probably one of the most striking things was when one of the young school strikers spoke and pretty much blew the crowd away. Just their energy and their drive and passion is incredible and we’re very lucky to have the young people that we do, especially in our community, leading the way on this.”