Newcastle Climate Action Summit

Newcastle Climate Action Summit

Saturday 18 November 2023 - and you're invited!

This event is supported by City of Newcastle

Are you a community, business, industry, local government or public sector group that is keen to act to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions in Newcastle to tackle the effects climate change?

Following the generous support by City of Newcastle, the cost of registration for the summit has now been halved.

Here are the new registration prices for the summit:

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander registration
Unwaged / Pensioner
Waged (<$50k)
Waged ($50-100k)
Waged (> $100k)

FREE

$15
$25
$35
$50

We invite you to the Newcastle Climate Action Summit at Newcastle City Hall on Saturday 18 November 2023.

The summit will bring together diverse organisations to develop a comprehensive strategy to reduce Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Newcastle. This will be the first city-wide strategy with emission reduction actions for transport and waste, households, commerce and industry.

In a context where a wide spectrum of voices are now talking about the issue of climate change as an emergency, would you find it useful to hear from local scientific, policy experts and advocates and have your voice heard on ways to come together across sectors and interests to address this threat?

We want to hear directly from you. What actions do you and your organisation consider the highest priority to rapidly reduce Newcastle’s Greenhouse gas emissions? How can our city play its part in the national and global effort? What great initiatives are being developed or being implemented? What else is necessary?

Convened by a coalition of community groups Climate Action Newcastle and Newcastle Climate Change Response, together with many other participating and supporting organisations, the inaugural Newcastle Climate Action Summit aims to:

Engender the active involvement of large numbers of community members and leaders, including business, industry and all levels of government
Bring together diverse communities who have not participated in developing climate plans: young people; Aboriginal community members; culturally and linguistically diverse community members; people with disability
Create increased awareness and commitment to the reduction of GHG emissions (e.g. businesses, council and other stakeholders committing to specific actions with measurable impact)
Present emission reduction strategies for transport, waste, household, commercial and industrial sectors developed as part of the Newcastle Emission Reduction Plan project.
Gain feedback from the public and key stakeholders on emission reduction strategies through Table Talks.
Develop a comprehensive plan to reduce GHG emissions in Newcastle
Facilitate the combining of forces in multiple ways to forward Newcastle's response to bringing Australia's emission reduction commitments in line with what is required to arrest the worst effects of climate change; and
Build the local response to addressing the reduction of GHG emissions in the short term, that is, within the next 10 years.

If you are a community, business, industry, local government or public sector group that is keen to act to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions in Newcastle to tackle the effects climate change, you need to be there.

We warmly invite you to participate in this important community event. It will be a very interactive day, with small group discussions, table talks, speakers and workshops. We’ll all learn, share and connect. Costs have been kept to a minimum, with five registration rates to ensure the event is affordable and accessible.

The Summit is an opportunity for representatives to showcase their climate plans and action, facilitate conversation about a collective vision, and establish a formal partnership and collaborative approach to tackling the climate crisis.

Are you a community, business, industry, government or other public sector group that would like to be involved in contributing to this event? Would you like to contribute to a 20 minute stream or host a Table Talk on one of the Summit topics?:

We are seeking representation from the following groups:

Transport: Transport industry, Freight and Logisitics, Public Transport, Active Transport and E-mobility advocates, public transport companies; Transport for NSW; Rail, Tram and Bus Union, Automative Advocacy organisations, Electric Vehicle Advocacy organisations, Travel Industry
Industry: Industry and Manufacturing companies, Consultative committees, Chemical companies, Cement Production, Metal Manufactures, Refrigeration companies
Residential: Tenants Advocacy, Social Housing providers and advocates, Town Planners,
Commercial: Businesses, Small-medium enterprises, chambers of commerce, business improvement associations
Waste: Waste and resource recovery managers, Waste to energy advocates, Private waste companies, Foodbanks, Supermarkets.

Click on the following button to register your interest as a presenter at The Newcastle Climate Action Summit

WHEN?
Saturday November 18, 2023 9am - 4:30pm
WHERE?
Newcastle City Hall, 290 King St, Newcastle NSW
WHO?
All who are keen to act to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions in Newcastle to tackle the effects climate change:

Transport industry, Freight and Logisitics, Public Transport, Active Transport and E-mobility, Automative and Electric Vehicle advocacy organisations, Transport for NSW, and Rail, Tram and Bus Union, and Travel Industry;
Waste companies, Waste and resource recovery managers, Waste to energy advocates, Foodbanks, and Supermarkets;
Tenants Advocacy, Social Housing providers and advocates, and Town Planners,
Businesses, Small-medium enterprises, Chambers of commerce, business improvement associations;
Industry and Manufacturing companies, Chemical companies, Cement Production, Metal Manufactures, Refrigeration companies, and Industry Consultative committees,
YOU!

WHY?
Because we need to talk about climate!

Summit Speakers

Want to help out with the Climate Action Summit? Click on the button below:

I want to help out

Draft Schedule

Aim for Real Zero and Don’t Settle for Net Zero

The Newcastle Climate Summit framing is ‘Real Zero’. Many organisations have set ‘Net Zero’ targets which allow creative carbon accounting: promising that today’s carbon overspend will be paid off by future generations through expensive and as-yet unproven (at scale) negative emissions technologies. For us ‘Net Zero’ can imply inaction and the privileging of emissions for sectors, which has huge equity implications. Our focus is on how to reduce emissions from Transport, Waste, Industry, Business and Households to ‘Real Zero’ to prevent catastrophic climate change.

For more information..

Focus on Climate Mitigation rather than Climate Adaptation

As climate change is now a clear and present danger to our society and the natural world, both mitigation and adaptation are now necessary. However, the less we choose to mitigate today, the more adaptation we’ll need later and the less effective adaptation will become and the greater the divide will be between those that can afford adaptation and those that cannot (Rojas, 2019).

The focus of this Summit is working to address the root cause of the problem of climate change through Climate Mitigation rather than dealing with its effects. It is suggested that a separate parallel process be initiated to plan cross-sectoral climate adaptation actions with a focus on inclusivity and flexible approach within Newcastle.
For more information...

With emission reduction, count what doesn’t get counted

In total GHG emissions that can be linked to Newcastle LGA there are a large number of emissions that are not included in the total measured GHG emissions such as in the Newcastle 2020/21 municipal emissions snapshot from the Snapshot community climate tool (Ironbark Sustainability and Beyond Zero Emissions, 2022). All GHG emissions need to be reduced, not only those quantified as being Newcastle LGA emissions.
For example total measured Newcastle LGA emissions are equivalent to only 0.5% of emissions resulting from the use of exported coal from Newcastle Port which equates to around 400 Mt CO2-e emissions per annum. Putting it more starkly the emissions resulting from the export of coal through Newcastle Port are roughly equivalent to the total measured GHG emissions for Australia (401.4 Mt CO2-e for 2020/21) (Ironbark Sustainability and Beyond Zero Emissions, 2022). Such figures underlie the heavy importance of curtailing the export of coal from Newcastle to address effective GHG emission reduction in combating the effects of climate change.

For more information...

Our Sponsors and Supporters

We would like to thank the generous support of Vicki Brooke, and the City of Newcastle. Thanks also to CLEANaS and Hunter Innovation and Science Hub for their support.