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.
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