By Sahar Foladi
As the highest temperature was recorded on the planet just last week, Greater Dandenong Council is set to embark on a climate emergency management report .
Councillor Rhonda Garad filed the motion on 10 July for the Council to undertake a detailed report on emergency management necessary for events such as power blackouts during heatwaves.
“I put up the motion due to the alarming climate data emerging from the northern hemisphere.
“Records are consistently being broken, with the hottest days ever recorded occurring last week. The ocean temperature is significantly above normal and has remained so for months,” she said.
“The ocean has absorbed a substantial amount of heat, equivalent to 25 billion atomic bombs, leading to various effects such as sea ice reduction, coral bleaching, melting ice sheets, intensified hurricanes, and changes in ocean health and biochemistry.”
On Monday 3 July the planet saw the hottest day ever recorded, with average global temperature of 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 degrees Fahrenheit).
This is compared to the previous record of 16.92 degrees Celsius, which occurred on both 24 July, 2022 and 14 August 2016.
“Thousands of heat-related deaths have occurred during the northern summer due to record temperatures,” Cr Garad said.
“Power grids are failing, and night time temperatures are rising, making it difficult for people to cool themselves. Similar conditions are anticipated in Australia this summer.”
According to experts, the rise is a combination of human induced climate change and the emergence of El Nino, a weather pattern that occurs every two to seven years due to wind patterns in the Pacific Ocean which is known to result in increased temperatures worldwide.
Right now, Cr Garad says there’s a gap between what needs to be done and the State emergency team.
“This gap must be addressed by determining our capacity to respond, including identifying cool areas, transportation plans, and informing the public.
“We need to be prepared on a war footing to protect the community from more frequent extreme climate events.”
As a result of El Nino, along with rest of the countries, Australia too will see rise in temperatures this summer according to World Meteorological Organisation, with a continuous increase in global temperatures for the next nine to 12 months.
The thorough Council report will determine aspects such as, the percentage of vulnerable residents, communication strategy from Council to residents during climate related events, council’s emergency shelter capacity and identification and recommendation of strategies to address existing gaps within Council’s ability.
Council will also establish community network events to support vulnerable individuals.
“Right now we’re not sure what the procedure is, we’re not sure if the residents are made aware that there is an event, we’re not sure how to transport to cool zones, we’re not sure where the cool zones are and we’re not sure how many vulnerable residents we have.
“We’re not sure about almost anything in relation to how this council will respond to unlikely climate events.
“This is a foreseen event so we have to be prepared. I want to get to the point where every citizen knows what to do in terms of extreme event and know where the cool zone is,” Cr Garad said.
The motion saw a smooth pass from other Councillors and was even extended to natural disasters such as flooding.
Mayor Eden Foster said, it’s important that all emergency events are covered as part of the motion.
“This important work will help ensure we are as prepared as possible to support our Greater Dandenong community in the lead up to summer.”
As temperatures rise, the water cycle has also begun to intensify in a ‘wet-gets-wetter-dry-gets-drier.’
The water cycle is the process of water evaporation from the Earth which rises into the atmosphere, forms clouds and falls again as rain or snow.
This will look like intensified weather conditions where dry areas will see intense droughts more often and wet areas will see extreme storms and flooding.
This year, Council is conducting a multi-agency heatwave exercise in the Drum Theatre on September 19.
More information is yet to come. Expression of interest can be sent to emergency.management@cgd.vic.gov.au to register.
