In November 2021 representatives from many countries met in Glasgow to discuss the imperative of achieving substantial reductions in greenhouse emissions by 2030 amid warnings of dire consequences of not achieving them. But this is now a distant memory for a world preoccupied with covid and a determination to return to “normal”. Consumption of goods and services of all kinds including tourism, facilitated by massive debt has been used as the main driver to achieve it. Our governments (state and federal) continue to promote population and economic growth that enables more people to consume more of the planet’s resources, own more cars, promote urban sprawl that forces people to travel further and more often, facilitated by more freeways that make this easier with endless construction that is also an energy intensive process.
It has been a spending spree, with lots of partying as if there is no tomorrow – and that will be the outcome if this reckless and irresponsible behaviour continues – and very quickly. The clock that is counting down to zero or hothouse earth, take your pick, is ticking and we will know which path we will be on by 2030 or even earlier. At this rate we will have used up our share of the carbon budget required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2028. That is only six years away and the trends for all sectors, including transport with the exception of stand-alone electricity generation are tracking in the wrong direction, reinforced by policies that support this trend.
One would have thought our governments would treat this as a global emergency – far more critical than covid and have plans in place to address it. But no, it barely gets a mention and solutions have been delegated to the private sector and technology – just another covid according to our esteemed Prime Minister. It is easy to blame our politicians for this mess, and the system we use to elect them, but as President Nick Low said in his address at our forum in 2016 – “What’s the Plan, “pursuading government to make a real plan is possible, but we all have to take some responsibility for that task. It cannot be left solely to government”. But “a real plan is not just a bundle of infrastructure projects and vague aspirations illustrated with pages of colour photos and diagrams. A real plan is founded on facts”: and in this case the science, coupled with a vision for a new model for a zero-emission city that may be capable of adapting and even surviving in a zero-mission world.
We, ourselves need to send a clear and unambiguous message to government – we can’t expect them to do all the hard work of getting to a reasoned consensus on the future we want. We the people have to do that for ourselves. This is why we formed Transport for Melbourne and use our forums as opportunities to discuss critical issues and ways in which they may be addressed. Actions required to reduce emissions are not new and many can be implemented immediately. There will be no simple single fix solutions but with a real plan and the necessary will and commitment a lot can be done to give us reasonable prospects for the future – provided our political leaders can be persuaded to act. In the campaign against the so called East-West Motorway we have seen what citizens can do when united behind a single cause. The cause today could not be more compelling.