Introduction by Croakey: At a time when governments too often are disappointing on climate action, local councils have an important role in accelerating climate responses, reports Dr Elizabeth Haworth, a public health physician living in southern lutruwita/Tasmania.
Haworth reports below on moves by the Huon Valley Council – the southernmost local government area in Australia – to tackle climate change locally, including through engagement with concerned local residents.
Elizabeth Haworth writes:
Local councils in Australia are required to have a health strategy, also known as a municipal public health and well-being plan.
They are also required to act on climate change, taking affirmative measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, prevent harms to human rights due to climate change and ensure a healthy environment for all.
Under the Roles and Responsibilities for Climate Change Adaptation in Australia (COAG 2012, superseded by National Cabinet in 2020) local governments are responsible for:
- administering relevant state and territory and/or Commonwealth legislation to promote adaptation as required including the application of relevant codes, such as the Building Code of Australia
- managing risks and impacts to public assets owned and managed by local governments
- managing risks and impacts to local government service delivery
- collaborating across councils and with State and Territory Governments to manage risks of regional climate change impacts
- ensuring policies and regulations under their jurisdiction, including local planning and development regulations, incorporate climate change considerations and are consistent with State and Commonwealth Government adaptation approaches
- facilitating building resilience and adaptive capacity in the local community, including through providing information about relevant climate change risks
- working in partnership with the community, locally-based and relevant NGOs, business and other key stakeholders to manage the risks and impacts associated with climate change, and
- contributing appropriate resources to prepare, prevent, respond, and recover from detrimental climatic impacts.
Along with about 100 Australian local authorities and three other Tasmanian councils, the Huon Valley Council has declared a Climate Change Emergency. It did this in 2023, acknowledging that climate change is one of the most significant issues facing the Huon Valley, will cause unavoidable impacts across all facets of the municipality, and requires urgent comprehensive action by council business units, community sectors, and levels of government.
This was a good first step for climate action locally, followed by acceptance of the Climate Change Strategy drawn up by Dr Malcolm Johnson, the Council’s first Climate Change officer, who has recently become the Council’s Manager of Environmental Sustainability.
Johnson recently earned his PhD from the University of Tasmania, titled ‘Changing Coastalscapes: Advancing methods to support local climate adaptation in the Huon Valley Council area’, which has an extensive coastline subject to the threats of climate change.
Community engagement
A large community meeting in Cygnet, a small town of about 4,000 people, heard from Johnson last month about the Council’s strategy. The Council sees a limitation of the Strategy is not having the time commitment to take climate change as seriously as needed due to being so stretched on just core services or not having the internal policies to action some climate goals.
Johnson encouraged us to act on climate change, along with the Council’s staff, executive leadership, and councillors who have accepted responsibility for action on climate change.
He is now applying his knowledge and skills in our local council area as well as continuing to teach at the University of Tasmania and progressing as an early career researcher with experience in coastal resource management and climate change planning and socio-ecological systems. All his work centres on community-based and scientifically informed decision making in coastal regions.
Unfortunately, the response of both Federal and State Governments continues to be disappointing in light of increasing emissions and rising mean temperatures around the world.
This is especially the case in in Australia which, despite its wealth of renewable energy opportunities, and to be fair, encouragement for these, continues to approve new fossil fuel ventures and their subsidy, instead of enhancing the R and D program and budget for renewable energy.
Rather than fret over this failure, Johnson recommended applauding the Council, one of three in Tasmania with a dedicated lead on climate change – in a state with 29 councils.
He urged us to work with the climate team for strong local action, and particularly emphasised the need for strong adaptation plans, combined with mitigation where possible, as the inevitable complications of climate change are already here.
Climate aware councils work with the Local Government Associations of Tasmania and Australia, sharing their ideas and responsibilities.
Huon Valley Council has made some modest funding commitments towards achieving its climate strategy’s goals, which Johnson established. Financial support for the roles of environmental sustainability and climate change are limited in all local authorities, but in his new role, Johnson is now moving to appoint someone to take on his previous role as Principal in Climate Change.
This means we will have a strong team for action on climate change locally.
To progress further, the Huon Valley Environment and Climate Change team aims to create and coordinate a local citizens’ group.
Johnson has been compiling a list of residents who are concerned about climate change. There are many of us in the Huon Valley, where many people have rural properties and small agricultural ventures, and are feeling our changing climate.
Johnson summarised the environmental, economic and health, especially mental health effects, of climate change, which formed the basis of the Council’s climate change strategy, with three main components:
- the need for stronger education on climate change and access to the evidence/facts for all
- the realistic expectations on Council (including the urgent appointment of a new lead on climate change)
- the role of citizens.
A challenge for the Huon Valley Council is to coordinate local action on climate change, including the engagement and collaboration of citizens, many of whom are retirees but informed, skilled and already involved in environmental and climate projects.
After Johnson’s presentation, we discussed the recent unexpected cyclonic winds in the area, with lengthy power and communication disruptions, and the need for better emergency plans, as well as the prediction of increased bushfire threats in an ever-warming climate.
People left the meeting informed and inspired for local action, to live locally as much as possible and perhaps become an exemplar community, committed to working to reduce emissions, despite the failure of national politics.
• See the Huon Valley Council’s page on climate change
Author details
Dr Elizabeth Haworth is a medical graduate of Sydney University with qualifications in general medicine/paediatrics/infectious diseases and public health. She specialised in Disease Control, working as a regional epidemiologist and director with the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre/Health Protection Agency (now the UK Health Security Agency) for London and the South East, based in Oxford.
When she returned to Australia in 2010, she maintained an academic appointment as Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in Public Health at the University of Oxford and has an honorary research position at the Menzies Research Institute, University of Tasmania.
Her research interests have included the control of infectious and environmental diseases and most recently the control of infection at the Hajj and other mass gatherings, the epidemiology and control of healthcare associated infections and vaccine preventable diseases, the health effects of climate change and environmental sustainability.
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