The City of Melbourne is taking action to prepare for climate change.
We invested almost $30 million in climate change policy and initaitives in 2010–11, and $11.2 million in 2011–12. While our Greenhouse Action Plan is reducing Council's emissions, and Zero Net Emissions by 2020 Update 2008 focuses on reducing emissions from the entire municipality, some degree of climate change is now inevitable.
Cities which plan and act early will better withstand the impacts of climate change and maintain a platform for future health and prosperity.
Our plan for action
Just some examples of action we’re taking include:
Our Climate Change Adaptation Strategy provides more information about our actions to cushion, neutralise, adjust or avoid climate change impacts. It identifies climate change risks for the municipality, including critical risks, for now, in 2030 and 2070.
Key climate risks
We face four key climate change risks:
- less rainfall and more chance of drought
- extreme heatwaves and bushfires
- intense rainfall and wind storms
- sea level rise.
Our Climate Change Adaptation Strategy assesses the likelihood of these risks occurring. It explores the impact on our critical urban systems, such as:
- water supply
- transport
- communications
- energy services
- emergency services
- built environment
- social systems.
Building resilience
There are many ways to build resilience to climate change impacts, and we explore these in our Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.
Options include:
- technological (green/cool roofs)
- behavioural (safety in flood water)
- managerial (maintenance practices)
- policy-related (planning regulations).
Two key actions that offer multiple benefits for the municipality are:
- Harvesting storm water across the municipality – this helps with reducing drinking water usage, watering our parks and street trees, preventing floods, building our water system resilience and protecting biodiversity.
- Increasing the city’s passive cooling efficiency – the city centre can be up to 7°C hotter than less urbanised places so reducing heat levels will help counter rising temperatures.
Climate Change Adaptation Strategy
The Climate Change Adaptation Strategy is a comprehensive assessment of Melbourne’s climate change risks for 2010, 2030 and 2070. The strategy outlines a risk analysis of the potential climate change impacts and possible implications for Melbourne.
Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (PDF, 3.7MB)
Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (Text only, 1.6 MB)