One of the best ways to keep our cool is to maintain leafy streets, parks and backyards. But in some cities, trees are being chopped down faster than local councils can replace them. Some councils are also fast running out of land to plant trees.
Most of the damage happens on private land. Usually it’s a result of large blocks being subdivided or undeveloped land being opened up for more homes.
Cutting down trees for urban development is well within the law. But tree-protection laws are weaker in some parts of Australia than in others. To ensure our cities remain liveable, some laws will have to change.
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Beyond just providing shade, trees reflect heat into the atmosphere. They also cool the air by releasing water through pores in their leaves, acting like evaporative air conditioners.
Trees provide many other benefits such as removing pollutants, limiting erosion and improving public health.
The influential 3-30-300 rule for green cities, proposed by Dutch researcher Cecil Konijnendijk, states:
Our team at the University of Adelaide produced a 2022 report on tree-protection laws across Australia. The state government commissioned us to verify a claim that South Australia’s tree-protection laws were the weakest in the nation. We compared state and local council regulations, and the claim turned out to be true.
— from the Conversation: “Adelaide is losing 75,000 trees a year. Tree-removal laws must be tightened if we want our cities to be liveable and green”, by &
Clearly the SA government was annoyed by the protests at the APPEA conference: by the Thursday of that week, the lower house had passed legislation dramatically increasing penalties for public protests.
Earlier this week, the Human Rights Law Centre released an explainer which revealed many of the problems with the ill-considered legislation
… Read more >>The Bill: Summary Offences (obstruction of Public Places) Amendment 2023 (SA)
On 18 May 2023, the South Australian Legislative Assembly introduced, and passed, the Summary Offences (Obstruction of Public Places) Amendment (The Bill) in response to protest activity in Adelaide which briefly closed traffic. The Bill amends section 58 of the Summary Offences Act 1953 (The Act) to, among other things, dramatically increase the maximum penalty for obstructing a public place. The Bill is currently before the Legislative Council for deliberation.
…Section 2(1)
2(1)
Section 2(1) of the Bill increases the penalty for obstructing a public place from $750 to a maximum of $50,000 or a maximum term of imprisonment of 3 months. This is a 60-fold increase to the maximum financial penalty; the Act does not currently provide imprisonment as a penalty for obstructing a public place. It is intended that these penalties would have a strong deterrent effect to protestors who block public space.
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Section (3) (1a)
Section (3) (1a) of the Bill makes defendants criminally responsible for their direct obstruction of a public place, but it also intends to capture conduct even if it indirectly causes obstruction of a public place.
The Bill provides an example of what this may include, namely, if police or other emergency services need to restrict access to the public place to, “safely deal with the person’s conduct”.
What just happened?
The Great Barrier Reef has been World Heritage listed since 1981. This means it’s considered an area of outstanding value to humanity. Covering an area the size of Italy, this iconic area includes some 3,000 separate reefs, over 1,000 islands and a variety of other significant habitats.
The latest UN mission has just reported back, finding the reef’s condition is worsening and recommending it be listed as “in danger”. It also offered practical solutions.
Previous governments have fought to ensure the reef is not listed as in-danger despite their own five-yearly reviews demonstrating an obvious decline. In 2009, the reef’s condition was rated poor and declining. In 2014 it was poor and declining and in 2019, very poor and declining.
So the government knows the reef is in danger. We know, and the tourism industry knows. While some tourism operators worry about their business, the opposite appears to be true: more people go, thinking it might be their last chance to see it. And already, operators are adapting by taking tourists to areas still in good condition.
Federal governments just don’t want the reef on the list because of the hit to their international reputation – and to their domestic standing.
If the reef is officially listed as “in danger” next year, it will draw a much greater focus to the reef’s plight. And that may help galvanise effective national and global action.
Take the case of the famous coral reefs of Belize in Central America. When these reefs were listed, the government banned nearby oil exploration and protected mangroves. Belize’s reefs have now been taken off the in-danger list.
— Jon C Day, the Conversation, “We all know the Great Barrier Reef is in danger – the UN has just confirmed it. Again“
from the Joint technical briefing by climate justice organisations Action Aid, Corporate Accountability, Friends of the Earth International, the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, Third World Network and What Next?
Far from signifying climate ambition, the phrase “net zero” is being used by a majority of polluting governments and corporations to evade responsibility, shift burdens, disguise climate inaction, and in some cases even to scale up fossil fuel extraction, burning and emissions. The term is used to greenwash business-as-usual or even business-more-than-usual. At the core of these pledges are small and distant targets that require no action for decades, and promises of technologies that are unlikely ever to work at scale, and which are likely to cause huge harm if they come to pass.
Key takeaways:
The term “net zero” is used by the world’s biggest polluters and governments as a façade to evade responsibility and disguise their inaction or harmful action on climate change.
“Net zero emissions” does not mean “zero emissions”, and should not be accepted at face value.
There is simply not enough available land on the planet to accommodate all of the combined corporate and government “net zero” plans for offsets and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) tree plantations.
Collectively, “net zero” climate targets allow for continued rising levels of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, while hoping that technologies or tree plantations will be able to suck carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air in the future.
By putting the burden for carbon sequestration onto land and tree plantations in global South countries – which have done little to cause the climate crisis – most “net zero” climate targets are effectively driving a form of carbon colonialism.
Many governments and corporations have pledged to achieve “net zero” by a distant date, further compounding the harm caused.