Melburnians must be proactive and act now to adapt to the ‘locked in’ effects of climate change.

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Released in July this year and the result of 12 months’ work by 80 Melbourne organisations, the Committee for Melbourne climate change FutureMap report is a blueprint for adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change, which include rising sea levels, increasing temperatures, and more frequent extreme weather events.

The first Melbourne-specific and ‘plain English’ report on the impacts of climate change also recommends practical actions for mitigating our greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from stationary energy and transport, by engaging all levels of the community.

The Climate Change Taskforce was convened to investigate the impacts and opportunities from climate change for Melbourne. Committee Members will be invited to play a key leadership role in showing the changes business can make to seize and deliver the opportunities that are presented by a changing climate.

The Committee is calling on Melbourne organisations, including its broad 160-strong membership, to take action to make ‘early and deep’ cuts in the amount of harmful emissions put out by Melbourne and Victoria.

The Committee will hold workshops in the coming months about the benefits of retrofitting buildings, ‘greening’ procurement processes, and changing travel behaviour to adapt to climate change, reduce emissions and improve the organisation’s bottom line. The Committee will also host a roundtable to discuss measures to help low income renters adapt to climate change impacts.

In addition to taking concrete actions, the Committee will share its recommendations with Government because it believes climate change requires Melbourne and Victoria to plan, on a community wide scale, for reserves, redundancy and resilience. Among the climate change sensitive policies set out by the Committee, the FutureMap advocates:

• All new and proposed amendments to Government legislation be subject to a Climate Change Impacts Assessment, including measures to accommodate resilience to the effects of climate change;

• Planning regulations to allow ‘as of right’ 6 storey/30m height development along specific high frequency public transport routes, subject to local ‘green space’ and heritage considerations; and

• Melbourne utilise an ‘Asia Pacific Institute for Sustainable Cities’ to facilitate the co-ordinated uptake of existing funding schemes and business investment across Victoria to encourage reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

The report is focussed, rather than all encompassing, and identifies Melbourne opportunities which are within the Committee’s realm of expertise and where it has the capacity to make a difference. The areas it covers are: buildings; business procurement; urban resilience; transport; low emission energy; and social equity.