What is climate change?
Climate change is the change in the long term weather patterns found in any country or city and will impact each country and city differently.
It may change the amount of rain or snow a country gets, the severity and frequency of natural disasters or cause ice to melt rising ocean levels. Small changes in the Earth’s average temperature will have long-lasting effects and may eventually limit our options on where we can live or grow food.
People use transport, cook food, warm or cool their homes and power their electronics. All of these things take energy to operate and produce. One of the ways we get energy is by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, petroleum and gas. These are known as non-renewable energy sources.
Whenever we burn fossil fuels greenhouse gases are released as part of the combustion process. Greenhouse gases then trap heat in our atmosphere. As we continue to add greenhouse gases more heat is trapped which generates warmer average temperatures (both on land and ocean) and with it causes greater variability in weather patterns across our planet.
Each increase in emissions puts greater pressure on our ability to adapt. Costing us more in time, money and safety each day we delay taking action.
You can help by continuing to learn about earth and climate change science. I recommend taking a look at the great information put out by the United Nations (UN) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
So why are we now in an emergency?
Decades of growing levels of greenhouse gas emissions have led to a small window for us to stop the climate from changing exponentially. Experts now say we have only a decade left to make the changes needed to avoid a cascade of tipping points that would lead to even higher levels of warming.
We risk pushing the average temperature rise above 1.5 degrees. While this may not sound like much it could have devastating impacts on our most vulnerable. Flooding in low lying communities, severe coastal erosion, more frequent and severe storms and fire, increased urban heat island effects and, greater food and water scarcity in many parts of the world.
We haven’t even begun to talk about the extinction of flora and fauna, permanent disruption to ecosystems and devastating flow-on effects to industries like tourism and hospitality.
What can I do?
We are in a climate emergency and as such, we need urgent action. The Local Government Climate Emergency Toolkit is just one tool available for individuals and communities to take action. All sources of emissions need to be identified and acted upon. As such the toolkit focuses on eight key areas:
energy
transport
communication
advocacy
procurement and waste
industry and built environment
agriculture and open space
transparency and accountability
You may wish to use the toolkit as the basis for learning about what aspects you or your city can take.
It’s important to know that we can make the changes needed today with the current technology, tools and money available. Change is very possible. It just requires us to re-prioritise, to be mindful and to choose an alternative, sometimes an alternative to something we have chosen our whole life.
Importantly you must talk about the climate emergency with your family and friends. Talk about it in your workplaces, your religious institutions, your schools and let your leaders know we need urgent change.