1: What is your position on global warming and climate change?2: Are we doing enough to mitigate the impact of climate change in the region?3: Do community and business leaders have a role in advocating for more action, and positioning our region to take advantage of emerging opportunities?4: What is your number one priority to help mitigate the impacts of climate change?
Today we feature the responses of Shepparton-based Legislative Council Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell.
What is your position?
The world’s climate has always changed — the history of the Earth tells us that and that is why we have had ice ages and ice melts. However, I believe that we all need to accept that our climate is now changing more rapidly due to human activity and I accept the scientific evidence that supports this.
Are we doing enough to mitigate the impact of climate change in the region?
The short answer is we could do more but climate change can’t be solved in one region alone. This is a global problem that needs global action.
Governments and industry will have to do more but they also need to act in a responsible manner that doesn’t cause significant hardship and unintended consequences.
For example: industry just packing up and moving to another country, that doesn’t address their responsibilities; or causing power prices to rise to the extent that lower-income households can’t afford.
There is also an onus on all of us as individuals to ensure we reduce our environmental and carbon footprint. We have become a consumer-driven, disposable society and over the past 50 years we have gone from small homes housing large families to extremely large homes that house fewer people but are fully air-conditioned and centrally heated.
We have numerous cars, TVs and mobile phones and a household’s carbon footprint is now much larger than what it was 50 years ago, let alone a century ago. Governments can assist individuals to reduce their carbon footprint through the provision of, for example, more public transport, but we also need to ask ourselves — what can we as individuals do to assist?
Do community and business leaders have a role in advocating for more action to combat climate change impacts?
Our community leaders have an obligation to advocate for the best outcomes for our region, and that means ensuring we can move to a more sustainable future while limiting the impact and risks it may have on our economy and liveability.
The rest of the population will always look to the leaders to provide solutions and lead by example, and I see that leadership happening in our region now. We have already seen our industries investing in better technology and more sustainable practices.
A good example is our irrigation industry, which has invested in better technology with solar power, and our irrigators, who have invested in irrigation practices that use less water. The recent expansion of solar facilities throughout the district shows that our region is taking advantage of emerging opportunities and also demonstrates a commitment to renewable energy and sustainability.
What is your number one priority?
The first thing that needs to happen is to move the discussion away from the current extremes of ‘Climate Change Deniers’ and ‘Climate Change Alarmists’ to ensure we can achieve an informed plan that will lead to a more sustainable future.
Other than that, investment in education and science to guarantee we are constantly producing better evidence and technology to ensure we make the right choices that produce the biggest gains in addressing climate change and our future sustainability.
However, one thing we could do immediately is to adopt the Victorian Liberal Party’s ‘Zero to Landfill’ waste-to-energy policy, which is based on technology that has already been successfully implemented in central Paris, Amsterdam, Germany and Singapore.
This technology, along with reforms to recycling, would allow us to achieve zero waste going to landfill by 2035 and produce a reliable low-emission baseload energy supply to help meet Victoria’s growing needs and reduce reliance on high-emission fossil fuel-based energy production.
26°C