Tackling climate change may have gone off the boil nationally, but Melbourne’s Northern Alliance will map the area’s risk factors for predicted extreme events, including heatwaves.
Recent Bureau of Meteorology studies indicate heatwaves have taken more Australian lives than any other natural hazard in the past 200 years.
Melbourne’s fast-growing northern region holds one quarter of the greater metropolitan population. Importantly, as reported in Star Weekly, the north is among the urban areas most vulnerable to climate change.
Whittlesea and Hume councils are among nine local governments working with the Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action (NAGA) to develop a regional approach to the climate change challenge. Others are Banyule, Darebin, Manningham, Yarra, Moreland and Nillumbik councils and the Melbourne City Council.
Northern Alliance has received $150,000 for an Integrated Regional Vulnerability Assessment (IRVA) through the Victorian Adaptation and Sustainability Partnership.
Supported by the state government, the 12-month project will examine how the threats of bushfire and flood will affect parts of the region differently and how the whole NAGA will face the deadly threat of heatwave.
With consultants Arup, councils will engage key internal staff and various external agencies, including the Municipal Association of Victoria, to start assessing the impact of risks, such as heatwaves.
The project will outline:
• The climate change impacts most likely to be experienced in the region, and who or what will be most vulnerable;
• Adaptation actions that need to be undertaken to reduce this vulnerability;
• What adaptation mechanisms and barriers exist; and
• What processes and actions for adaptation can begin to be put in place.
A spokeswoman for Whittlesea council said the most vital aspect of the project would be its proposed sector-based workshops in the fields of human services, infrastructure, planning, emergency management, natural ecosystems and industry.
These workshops will engage on-the-ground staff in their area of expertise.
