Tackling climate change

Tackling Climate Change in Victorian Communities is the topic for an Inquiry being held by the Environment Committee of the Victorian government Legislative Council with a Gippsland hearings held in Traralgon and Bairnsdale. 144 submissions from individuals, groups and organisations are listed on their web page.

On a previous Friends of Drouin’s Trees blog post it was noted that we “cannot halt global warming without reducing emissions and we cannot plant our way out of climate change”. Submissions can be found that favour one aspect over the other, that is, either tackling reduction of emissions or promoting the advantage of plants in reducing carbon in the atmosphere. 

Tackling climate change/global warming is a complicated task. The problem of climate change is something that has been either created by or exacerbated by humans and needs all the human ingenuity that can be mustered to turn the situation around. It seems that the matter is urgent as described by the United Nations Inter-Government Panel on Climate Change scientists. There have been mistakes made in attempting to ‘do something’ about it as noted in the previous blog mentioned above, and much research done, both of which are tools for learning about the best way forward.

A member of Friends of Drouin’s Trees noted that among the submissions there was no mention of urban trees as part of the arsenal for tackling climate change and was able to rectify this gap. Of course, there are many brilliant suggestions offered in the submissions, but urban forestry is an area that appears to be disconnected from other attempts to ameliorate the climate and biodiversity problems that are becoming increasingly apparent. This was seen also when other members of Friends of Drouin’s Trees were invited to speak at a Victorian State Landcare forum recently and participants came to the realisation that the model of grassroots care for urban trees/vegetation was of significance in the whole scheme of things and one that had been over-looked.

The United Nations General Assembly declared 2021 – 2030 theUN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. It involves not just trees being planted, cared for and protected on farms, public spaces, roadsides, forests and in towns, but wetlands and seaweed restoration as well. “Ecosystem restoration is fundamental to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, mainly those on climate change, poverty eradication, food security, water   biodiversity conservation.”

While the initiative to restore ecosystems does not include reference to reducing emissions other Sustainable Development Goals cover this, for example Goal 7   is for “Affordable and clean energy” and Goal 17 encompasses all the others - we need to strengthen   the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

 It has come to the stage in the existence of humanity on this planet that we need to use every tool at our disposal to tackle climate change and the more we work together and learn from mistakes and research the more hope we will have of success.

Contributed – thanks Joan.