Climate-ready planning laws for NSW

The NSW Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) has just released a set of recommendations for implementing climate-ready planning laws in NSW. This is a particularly interesting (but depressing) read given our group project subject matter, and the recent NSW state election results.

I was particularly struck that NSW has no legislation related to climate change. Nor does our premier list climate change as any of the key concerns of the state government. It is in this environment that the EDO has released their recommendations, calling on the government and the wider planning community to act now to ensure we are able to adapt to climate change.

The report can be downloaded here

In lieu of any state-based action or guidance on climate-change, the report notes that many local councils have moved ahead independently with planning for climate change. Blacktown City Council (one of the cities we are studying) has a report which sets out their response to climate change. They seem particularly far ahead in their thinking about climate change responses, and so reinforce the theme which has been set out in many of our lectures so far: that the city is the site where action on sustainability is most impactful.