Better Futures Australia, one of the country's prominent organisations for climate action, held their annual Better Futures Forum in Canberra earlier this month which brought together a range of community organisations and stakeholders across every level of government and industry to form new collaborations and continue their resolution for more ambitious climate action. Amongst the attendees were former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and the current Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy in the Albanese government Chris Bowen.

Australia is one of the world's biggest emitters of carbon per capita but the recent passage of the climate bill has enshrined into law two national greenhouse gas emissions targets. The first target requires a 43% cut below 2005 levels by 2030 and the second reduction seeks to cut emissions to “net zero” by 2050. In order to ensure Australia can meet their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) councillor Chan and the Better Futures Australia local government working group outlined three points in their call for a partnership between local governments and Australia’s Federal government.

• Establish a vertically integrated climate policy framework and recognize local government contributions in the Australian NDC to ensure current targets are genuinely ambitious.

• Establish an effective partnership between local governments and the federal government that would deliver an accord which:

  • Defines common objectives. 

  • Strengthens climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience between the three tiers of government.

• Allocate significant funding to deliver on this accord based on the actual resilience costs of climate change and requirements for local governments to protect their communities and build back better.

According to Climate Emergency Declaration (CED), 114 councils representing over 11 million people across Australia have declared a climate emergency and many of these leading councils are already part of the network of organisations throughout Australia, such as the Cities Power Partnership, ICLEI Oceania or the Global Covenant of Mayors working together to combat climate change.

City of Sydney Councillor HY William Chan who was also in attendance at the 2022 Better Futures Forum said, “Local governments have been leading on climate action in Australia for decades. Local governments are Australia’s secret weapon to rapidly accelerate climate action, they are the secret weapon to support the federal government to meet their 2030 targets.” The National Determined Contributions Australia has committed to will align it with other developed countries and this proposed partnership would strengthen the capacity of the federal government to fulfill that commitment.

Article written by: Dustin Cutler