A revision to the Territory Plan as been included in the Parliamentary Agreement by the ACT Greens.
The motivation behind the revisions is to aid Canberra’s progressive climate change target of 40% by 2020.
“The ACT will need to respond to the challenge of climate change across the policy spectrum as we are predicted to experience hotter, drier summers and more extreme fire danger days,” said Mr Rattenbury.
“The ACT has a progressive climate change target of 40% by 2020 which is in line with what scientists tell us we need to do to prevent dangerous climate change. The revision to the Territory Plan is a great opportunity to ensure that the ACT is better prepared for the known challenges ahead of us.
“The impact for the ACT community will be across the board – more days above 35 degrees, a higher risk of people being affected by heat waves, less rainfall, and increased fire danger.
“Urban planning must also take into account the hotter, drier days. We know that keeping vegetation in our urban areas significantly reduces urban heat – it’s important we don’t concrete over our city if we want to keep the urban environment comfortable.
“Houses of the future will need to be built to withstand extreme heat so that people can stay cool and comfortable throughout hotter summers. There are smart ways of doing this so that we aren’t spending lots of money on energy to cool houses down.
“Our suburbs must be planned carefully to keep the environment amenable – we need to plant more trees and maintain our urban greenery to ensure that we can ameliorate the impact of hotter days and less rain.
“This will be especially challenging given that our water usage will need to be tight – the Commission’s report predicts an overall reduction in annual rainfall, with greater
reductions in winter and spring falls, and less water in our catchments.“The challenges are obvious, and we need to be prepared on a range of fronts. Thinking about how we plan to build resilience in our city is a sensible response,” said Mr Rattenbury.
I know 40% is what has been recommended, but shouldn’t we aim for 50%?
Why do the bare minimum Canberra? Our Mother’s raised us better than that.
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