Here is the Act on Climate crew's update on what we're up to, what's coming up, and ways you can get involved! 

What does climate adaptation look like in action? And, how do we get the Vic Gov to increase action on adaptation?

This month, we amplified action already being taken by communities to keep each other safe. Alongside this, we helped further the discussion around adaptation gaps and opportunities in East Gippsland.

We also joined the call for a right to a safe climate to be included in Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. The Government acknowledging that Victorians have this right will lead the way to recognising the risks we face. After which, supporting Victorians to be safe will become compulsory.

Communities will be safest and best supported through unavoidable climate impacts if they have the tools to determine their own adaptation pathway.

That's why we are:

• Supporting communities to identify and develop their own adaptation solutions. This increases local resilience to withstand threatening climate impacts, and
• Calling on the Vic Gov to fund communities' adaptation solutions - see our proposal for a Vic Community Climate Adaptation Fund.

RSVP for a collective meeting if you're keen to be a part of our campaign or learn some organising skills - no experience required, just passion for climate justice.

Or, join our Frontline Climate Alliance Vic (FCAV) - we would love to have you involved if you are keen on progressing climate adaptation in your local community.

Here is the Act on Climate crew's update on what we're up to, what's coming up, and ways you can get involved! 

Thank you to everyone who submitted to the Resilience Inquiry and helped push our recommendation for a Victorian Community Climate Adaptation Fund (VCCAF) to ensure adequate and just climate adaptation that is community led! A short roundup of the incredible effort and outcomes of this below.

With the submissions stage of the Resilience Inquiry process closed, what's next? Join us in visioning and strategising the next stage of our advocacy for climate prepared Victorian communities at our upcoming in-person strategy sessions.

Or if you want us to come to you and help your community start the conversation around climate adaptation, reach out to us and we will come facilitate a community resilience mapping event. 

Join the Frontline Climate Alliance Vic (FCAV) calls to work together towards community-led climate adaptation and more resilient Victorian communities that keep people safe. Last month, the FCAV was presented the thought-provoking findings and practical recommendations for creating more climate resilient communities in the Care Through Disaster report. Link to the recording below if you missed it.

This month, we'll be hearing from Moonee Valley Sustainability about about its Cool Safe Space project. More below!

RSVP for an upcoming collective meeting if you're keen to be a part of our campaign or learn some organising skills - no experience required, just passion for climate justice.

Here is the Act on Climate crew's update on what we're up to, what's coming up, and ways you can get involved! 

The submissions deadline for the Inquiry into Climate Resilience has been extended to June 28th! We will be using this time to support more people and groups to have a say on Victoria's preparedness for climate disasters.

We've put together a Resource Pack filled with content for you to make a submission and support others to do the same.

Have you made your submission yet? We've just introduced an easier way to make your submission in as little as five minutes right now...

Last month, the Frontline Climate Alliance Vic featured examples of local adaptation initiatives. Link to the recording below if you missed it.

RSVP for an upcoming collective meeting if you're keen to be a part of our campaign or learn some organising skills - no experience required, just passion for climate justice.

Here is the Act on Climate crew's update on what we're up to, what's coming up, and ways you can get involved!

It's been a huge month for the Act on Climate collective. We're organising in various places, in our own network and beyond; building alliances, forming new relationships and planning how we can do more with the upcoming opportunities posed by the Inquiry into Climate Resilience. 

Last week we coordinated the third FCAV (Frontline Climate Alliance Vic) call. A different configuration of people have come together each month for these meetings, raising quality discussion.New ideas and connections were formed!

Scroll down for some of the highlights from our conversations, as well as more about the VIC Gov's Inquiry into Climate Resilience, and all about our first community resilience mapping activity.

RSVP for an upcoming collective meeting if you're keen to be a part of our campaign or learn some organising skills - no experience required, just passion for climate justice.

On the first sitting day of 2024, 6 February Act on Climate and others from Friends of the Earth were on the steps of parliament to ensure building a Climate Ready Vic is top of VIC MPs' minds.

Victorian communities already know what climate change impacts are affecting them and what adaptations are needed, and they are calling out for help. The three VIC towns discussed below are three of many anxious about climate adaptation. These communities are calling for help with adapting to incoming climate change impacts and this is what they are calling for...

Here is the Act on Climate crew's update on what we're up to, what's coming up, and ways you can get involved!

As 2023 wraps up as the hottest year on record and some settle into holiday mode, we’re continuing our preparations for a dangerously hot summer.

The responses to climate impacts we’re seeing here and now are being driven by local communities helping each other through disaster. This solidarity and mutual aid is critical and heartwarming, but it’s not enough.

Recently during COP28 negotiations we joined Move Beyond Coal activists at the office of Josh Burns MP to turn up the heat on Labor. We are calling for no more new fossil fuel projects and Funding for Climate Resilience.

Every step we take to help communities adapt to now unavoidable climate impacts secures a safer future and builds resilience, protecting people and country.

RSVP for an upcoming collective meeting if you're keen to be a part of our campaign or learn some organising skills - no experience required, just passion for climate justice.

The COP28 Climate Conference has just wrapped, and climate-impacted communities around the world watched in horror as a record number of fossil fuel industry lobbyists walked the halls and watered down attempts at strong commitments to tackle the climate crisis.

As Asah Rehgman writes "We are the ones who actually know this is a life-and-death fight. We are the realistic ones, and so we are the only hope for the future."

Friends of the Earth International has concluded that the COP28 outcome was undermined by dangerous distractions and lack of finance. “We need billions of dollars, we’ve been given peanuts, and even more debt to boot,” warned Bareesh Chowdhury of FoE Bangladesh.

Do you live in an urban area of Victoria? Love Victoria’s wild places, and want to help protect them from worsening bushfires? This one’s for you. 

Climate change is supercharging our bushfire seasons. Victoria’s latest Climate Science Report predicts that the annual number of high fire danger days in Victoria will increase by over 60% by the 2050s. These climate-fueled bushfires threaten Victorian lives, health, industry, First Nations cultural heritage and biodiversity on an unprecedented scale.

Longer, more intense bushfire seasons are placing huge burdens on Victoria’s firefighters. The Country Fire Authority (CFA) has lost nearly 2,000 volunteers since the Black Summer bushfires, and many rural CFA brigades are ageing as young people move to urban areas for work and study. Additionally, as climate change causes bushfire seasons around the world to overlap, we will not be able to draw on external firefighting support as we have in the past for ‘surge capacity’ needed during large bushfires.

It is clear that to tackle the climate-fuelled bushfire seasons of the 21st century, Victoria needs to strengthen its firefighting capacity by unlocking new sources of volunteers within the state.

We call on the Victorian government to create a volunteer remote area firefighting team (RAFT) that Victorians living in urban areas, like you, could join. 

Allowing urban Victorians to be trained and deployed as firefighters at times of urgent need would be a smart response to the reality of longer, more intense bushfire seasons. It would:

• Be an innovative way of strengthening firefighting capacity that would bring a younger, greater diversity of people into the CFA.
• Allow urban-based people who love wild places to play a practical role in protecting them from bushfires.
• Increase firefighting capacity at a low cost to the state.
• Contain fires before they destroy huge areas of biodiversity-rich bush. In bad fire seasons we often have to prioritise firefighting efforts to protect private property before public land, and a team dedicated to remote areas would help ensure that the places we love can be protected.  
• Provide backup for Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) remote area teams (which should also continue to be expanded)
• Catch Victoria up with other states that have Remote Area Firefighting Teams (NSW, Tasmania, ACT and QLD).
• Lessen the burden on existing fire brigades over summer. All Victorians benefit from volunteer firefighting, but the burden is not shared between urban and regional people.

The Victorian government’s new ten-year Bushfire Management Strategy states that the goal of increasing firefighter capacity is fundamental and will be a key aspect of its approach. With the strategy in draft form, we have an opportunity to get this good idea on the table and make it a reality.

To make our case, we need to demonstrate that there are lots of urban-based people who would sign up to be part of a Victorian RAFT, if it existed.

Add Your Name: I’d sign up to join a remote area firefighting team for Victoria.

*Note: by adding your name, you are not committing yourself to anything mandatory in advance. This pledge is for us to demonstrate the level of interest in the idea and for you to receive campaign updates.

To prepare for locked-in climate impacts, we need ongoing funding for community-led adaptation work. 

Will you call on the Victorian government to support communities in building resilience to climate impacts?

When it comes to tackling the climate crisis, every inch of a degree of warming that we can prevent by rapidly reducing emissions still matters. But climate impacts like bushfires, floods, drought and extreme weather are already inflicting blows on communities around the country. We know we need to prepare for a certain amount of warming that is locked in.

The majority of funding to address climate impacts is currently put into disaster relief, but we can’t only be on a reactive footing to climate impacts. Communities want funding in advance of climate disasters to build resilience and lessen the damage of impacts when they hit.

We call on the Victorian government to establish a permanent Victorian Community Climate Adaptation Fund (VCCAF). The fund would distribute money annually to community groups that apply to undertake localised adaptation and resilience projects. This approach would help the government meet its obligations to the Victorian Climate Change Act (2017) and ensure Victorian communities can enhance their capacity to adapt to impacts.

When the Victorian government has provided one-off grant programs for communities to carry out adaptation work in the past, they have been dramatically oversubscribed. It is clear that there is strong demand for support of local solutions that empower communities.

The government can build on its previous successful grant scheme models by establishing a permanent VCCAF. The nature of the fund would take into account the highly localised nature of climate impacts, and accordingly take a bottom-up approach of dispersing money to local groups that know the unique needs of their communities well.

Add your name to show your support for a permanent Victorian Community Climate Adaptation Fund.