Abigail gave notice of a motion calling for the NSW Government to implement the Audit Office report's recommendations, including urgently delivering a climate change adaptation action plan for NSW. The former Coalition Government refused to do this for years. The Greens are committed to pushing the Labor Government to finally introduce one.
Abigail gave notice of the following motion:
(1) That this House notes that:
(a) the climate risks that impact on state agency assets and services include flooding, bushfires and extreme temperatures, which can result in damage to tranport, communications, energy and social infrastructure, increases in hospital admissions and making social housing and schools no longer suitable for use,
(b) adaptation responses than can be planned for include controlling development in floodprone locations, proactive asset maintenance to reduce disruption of essential services, ensuring demand for health services can be met during heatwaves, improving thermal comfort in schools to support student engagement, and safeguarding infrastructure from more frequent and intense natural disasters,
(c) climate risk requires a coordinated government response and each agency needs to be supported by NSW Treasury to manage the physical risks to assets and services associated
with climate change,
(d) the previous Liberal-National Government pledged in 2016 to create a statewide climate change adaptation play by 2017 but never completed it,
(e) the NSW Audit Office released a scathing report in September 2021 entitled "Managing climate risks to assets and services", stating that key agencies with critical assets and services had not even conducted climate change risk assessment, yet alone developed adaptation plans,
(f) as at the date of the Audit Office report, many state agencies that own or manage assets and provide services did not have climate risk management in place, and at least one-third of physical assets by government entities had not been included in climate risk assessments,
(g) New South Wales is behind the rest of Australia in relation to climate adaptation risk assessment and adaptation, and
(h) despite repeated calls from The Greens NSW and independents, the previous Liberal National Government had not released a climate adaptation plan by the end of its term, releasing only a strategy in 2022 to have a plan by some later time.
(2) That this House calls on the Government to implement the recommendations in the Audit Office report, including urgently delivering a climate change adaptation action plan for the State.