Council urges residents to become vegetarian to stop climate change

A city council has pushed its residents to become vegetarian as part of its plan to bring its suburbs back from ‘the precipice of climate and ecological collapse’.

Melbourne‘s Yarra City Council, responsible for big inner-city suburbs such as Richmond, Collingwood and Fitzroy, unanimously voted to pass its 81-page Climate Emergency Plan on Tuesday night.

The 2024-2030 plan recommends the council’s residents ‘act on the climate emergency’ by switching to a plant-based diet, using more active and public transport and ‘consuming resources consciously’.

‘There is substantial evidence to suggest that the emissions associated with current dietary patterns – particularly the high and increasing rate of consumption of animal products – are likely to make it impossible to limit global heating to 1.5C,’ the plan, seen by the Herald Sun, stated.

‘It is widely understood that a shift to plant-based diets is critical in responding to the climate emergency.’

More specifically, the plan pointed to deforestation, methane emissions from livestock, transportation and refrigeration as key negative impacts from the ‘consumption of animal products’.

The council has also recommended its residents change their superannuation and banking over to companies that avoid investments in fossil fuels.

Yarra City Council has previously made headlines for its ‘woke‘ actions – including the introduction of a $115 ‘bin tax’ and refusal to fly the Australian flag. 

Its new demands are part of a larger effort to limit climate change and ‘decolonise’ Melbourne’s landscape.

The council claims the plan is its ‘assurance that we’ve heard the calls for climate action, and for a more equitable and just society’.

‘For Council, consideration of the climate emergency must be embedded into all decision making, so our assets, services, operations, and policies actively reduce emissions,’ it stated. 

Some of the goals detailed in the plan include a 20 per cent increase of people travelling by scooter and bike by 2027, and 40 per cent by 2032.

The plan also shared the council’s commitment ‘to its formal relationship with the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung’ – the local Indigenous people – by ’embedding Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung knowledge and practices in the ways that we care for Country’.

‘To move forward we need to look backwards. Around the country, Traditional Owner knowledge and practices are being adopted to inform and improve land management and promote sustainability … 

‘We need to change the narrative, and the way we look at our environment, adjusting our view to align with Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung knowledge and practices, passed on through stories,’ the plan stated.

Yarra City Council was one of the first councils in Australia to declare a climate emergency and became the first Victorian council to be certified carbon neutral in 2012. 

In its Climate Emergency Plan, the council sets a target of planting 200 native trees each year, with the specific goal of providing winter foraging opportunities for the grey headed flying fox, and moving towards native fauna.

It claims the focus on native greenery ‘will provide suitable habitat for our native wildlife, while minimising resource-intensive maintenance practices’.

‘An adequate climate emergency response means rethinking our relationship with nature. It means facing up to the harms caused to Country since colonisation and working towards remedying these harms with the knowledge and support of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung,’ the plan said.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Yarra City Council for comment. 

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