Central Coast Council’s Draft Community Strategic Plan, which is currently open for public comment, says on page 13: “reliance on non-renewable energy sources may become more problematic as fossil fuel reserves decline”.
Really? We have hundreds of years of unburnt fossil fuel supply in global conventional and unconventional reserves and the amount is growing not falling.
Our federal government has committed to reduce our national greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030 and to reach net zero emissions by 2050, to avoid dangerous climate change.
The NSW government has committed to 50% reduction by 2030 and 70% reduction by 2035, to avoid dangerous climate change.
Recent election results and public opinion surveys have confirmed strong public support for rapid action on greenhouse gas emissions to avoid dangerous climate change, and many councils have put this at the centre of their strategic planning documents.
Yet Central Coast Council can find no more pressing reason to reduce its emissions than the possibility that it might, one day, run out of fossil fuels to burn.
This suggests that Council is completely disconnected from the priorities, needs and safety of the community it serves.
This is even more surprising given that the insurance industry has identified the Central Coast as one of the most vulnerable areas in the country for climate disasters including fire, storm and flood.
Three years ago, 210 roads on the Central Coast were closed by flooding.
As I write this, my home and a couple of hundred of my neighbours at Narara are isolated by floodwaters and Narara Valley High School is closed due to flooded roads.
In 2019 Council adopted its Sustainability and Climate Action Plan 2022–2025 which expires this year.
Climate change is a fast-moving science.
The rate of global temperature rise has accelerated upward since 2023 in a way that was not predicted and has not yet been fully explained.
The science now suggests that at least two metres of sea level rise is now unavoidable.
For those who think such an outcome is impossible, consider this: Indigenous Australians once stood by a river in a forest-covered valley, 20km from the Pacific coast, and watched as global sea level rose by more than 90m, to fill what is now Sydney Harbour.
I find it extraordinary that Council would draft new Community Strategic, Operational and Financial plans to 2035, based on a Sustainability and Climate Action Plan which is now five years out of date.
But most alarming of all is the fact that all real objectives, targets, actions and deliverables in relation to climate and greenhouse emissions have been deleted from these new draft plans.
Your coast, your voice … Well, now is the time to speak up for our children and grandchildren.
Email, May 19
Geoff Cameron, Narara
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