MidCoast Council declares a climate emergency

Noting the progress of a council-wide climate change policy and action strategy was an item on the agenda for the ordinary council meeting held in Gloucester on October 23.

During the public forum prior to the official meeting, environmental activists Peter Mathison and Dominique Jacobs thanked council for bringing forward a policy addressing climate.

Mr Mathison asked council to involve the entire community in the plan for action, while Ms Jacobs sought for council to take the matter one step further and declare a climate emergency. Her request comes weeks after the a similar motion was passed at the Local Government NSW (LGNSW) conference.

Both of the community members' requests were acted on when council took the matter to a vote during the formal meeting.

Initially the item on the council papers was to note the progress on the policy and strategy following on from a presentation given to the councillors on August 21.

The policy framework included managing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from councils operations/activities by making "adjustments to existing activities and practices so that vulnerability to unavoidable climate change impacts on public and private infrastructure, council operations, water supply, natural systems and communities can be reduced".

The report outlined a range of works from metering resource consumption (power and water), along with carbon emissions, and the installation of solar panels on buildings.

But as the matter came before council, deputy mayor Claire Pontin asked to amend the motion asking that council not just note the progress, but recognise a state of climate crisis that requires urgent action and declare a climate emergency, as well as engage with the community in the development of the climate action work.

Cr Pontin said she moved the altered motion after having listened to members of the community and now believes that MidCoast Council is ready for a plan.

Brad Christensen spoke against the motion to declare the changing climate as an emergency, talking about his experience growing up on a farm and witnessing droughts and floods for 50 years.

"No one can predict what the weather is going to do overall with all the drastic changes that we have in the weather," Cr Christensen said. "I think council needs to be spending its money and energy and staff on a lot more important issues than climate change."

The full motion, which also included a call on the State and Federal governments to follow suit, was passed eight votes for (Crs Claire Pontin, David West, Katheryn Smith, Len Roberts, David Keegan, Troy Fowler, Karen Hutchinson and Peter Epov) to three against (Crs Brad Christensen, Kathryn Bell and Jan McWilliams).

A draft Climate Change Policy is being prepared as an urgent priority by council staff which will be presented to council for consideration and public exhibition prior to adoption.