Macedon Ranges council has adopted its Climate Emergency Plan 2023-30 (the plan), with the aim of accelerating action to address climate change.
Councillors moved the motion at a meeting on December 13, following council declaring a climate emergency on March 24, 2021.
The plan includes 56 action across six themes of nurturing nature, climate ready communities, post fossil fuels, health and wellbeing, waste and the circular economy and response and recovery.
Speaking to the motion, Cr Jennifer Anderson said feedback included the potential to have stronger outcome measures and performance indicators for the plan.
“What I really love about this document is it does cross reference all our existing strategies and policies, so it’s not going to sit in isolation,” she said.
“It really is setting that collaboration scene to work in partnership and to support our community to be able to reduce their emissions and to address climate change.
“Everyone has their part to play, but if we’re playing it together and we’re all acknowledging the way we can do this, we can achieve much more.”
Cr Mark Ridgeway moved the original climate emergency motion and said he has been looking forward to this plan since joining council.
“There’s been a lot of work and action along the way, including the Cool Changes program, which has also largely driven a lot of the outcomes we’ve seen in this climate emergency plan,” he said.
“[The plan] provides a way of looking at improving our council recovery and resilience programs, particularly in relation to emergencies and so forth which have been [ongoing]… and will probably get worse rather than better.”
The plan was released for community consultation from September 27 to October 27, resulting in minor amendments and community group advising of additional collaboration opportunities.
Some of the key flagship actions proposed include a new climate action grant from council, a comprehensive integrated transport strategy, more community lead recovery opportunities, and a program to enable an equitable home energy transition for low income households.
Zoe Moffatt
