In May this year, the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) convened a collaborative forum on climate change. We invited property and built environment peaks, leading planning academics, and organisations representing local government, farmers and builders.
Our objective was to establish common ground with regard to planning’s role in addressing climate change. We aimed to develop a set of agreed actions to maximise the opportunities presented by the planning system to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, and protect our communities from climate impacts.
Planners, and planning systems, are uniquely placed to bring together built environment and land management professionals, and the community, to deal with the complexities of planning in a changing climate.
Many peak bodies, including PIA, the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA), and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) have made a commitment to a zero carbon built environment. Property industry leaders have urged governments to pick the low hanging fruit offered by the built environment.
The built environment, along with land use planning, is one of relatively easy opportunities to reduce emissions and mitigate climate impacts. Reducing emissions in other sectors such as agriculture and transport will be much more challenging, but even these can be supported by decisions made within the planning system.
While the built environment is responsible for a quarter of Australia’s emissions, the technologies and mechanisms required to achieve net zero carbon buildings and neighbourhoods already exist. The Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC) reports energy efficiency actions alone could deliver a 23 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, and 55 per cent by 2050.
Planning is the key lever for all the other built environment professions to make the transition to net zero emissions.
We need a planning system that allows us to make the best decisions, underpin investments, and to draft the right policies.
Resilience in the face of already locked-in changes to our environment, whether increased heat or rising sea levels, will require adaptations that also rely on the planning system for implementation.
So what does this look like? The peak bodies all agree the following actions are necessary first steps. For starters, we are calling for the creation of a ministerial advisory council on Climate Change. An expert body with a whole-of-government purview could identify opportunities to better align incentives and regulatory systems, with a strong focus on the planning system as a critical enabler.
We also need a comprehensive roadmap to zero carbon buildings by 2030. Updating the National Construction Code to improve the minimum energy performance of new homes from six to seven stars was a good start. A roadmap for Victoria would go further by outlining the specific challenges across differing building typologies and looking at how and where our built environment systems need to be updated to deliver net zero outcomes. Some of these might be through planning, but changes to building regulations, incentives, updates to training or accreditation programs or other reforms may also be required.
Significant change can also be delivered at the precinct planning stage. Ensuring new neighbourhoods produce net zero emissions at the planning stage is critical to avoid adding to the numerous suburbs that will require retrofitting. This means stronger requirements for precinct planning, including through further changes to the Precinct Planning Guidelines and associated controls and legislation to include mandatory Climate Change Response planning.
Extreme heat events can hit people harder in cities. Green infrastructure is crucial for adaptation to heatwaves and other climatic changes, but we lack a metropolitan framework that integrates existing strategies and articulates the priorities across local government areas. A Green Infrastructure Framework would identify necessary statutory changes or new legislation to give teeth to the protection of our urban canopy and green spaces.
We also need to recognise the disproportionate impacts climate change will have on our regions. Regional growth plans should be reimagined as “transformation frameworks”. Growth in the regions needs to be considered more strategically in light of increasing risks in some areas. We also need to provide a cohesive framework, and a degree of certainty, for how the regions can benefit from the emerging opportunities, particularly around renewable energy, in a way which is integrated with settlement planning. Landscape-scale consideration of habitat corridors, and the protection of land which will remain viable for agriculture as our climate changes should all inform growth in our regions.
The state government is well placed to provide consistent, publicly accessible data and evidence to support planning decisions in the face of climate change. For example, PIA has repeatedly highlighted the inadequacy of existing riverine and coastal flood mapping. Shared, trustworthy data is essential for planning and property professionals and the community alike to make timely evidence-based decisions on development. Ensuring these risks are reflected in our planning controls is a long overdue first step. The state has taken the lead in providing a consistent, science-based approach to the management of bushfire hazards. It should do the same for flood risk.
Most importantly, there must be an alignment of ambition with resourcing and enforcement. Over the coming decade, we will need to equip hundreds of built environment professionals including planners, engineers and building surveyors with the skills and abilities to deliver transformational policy, and to do so efficiently. We must also render meaningful consequences where there is failure to comply.
It is clear that after decades of inaction, we are moving on climate change.
Chris Bowen, in his first annual climate change statement delivered to parliament, revealed that to reduce carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, we will need to achieve the same emissions reduction in the next eight years that has been achieved in the last 18.
The newly elected Victorian Government has renamed one of its ministries Climate Action.
The opportunities for planning to deliver this action must be seized with both hands.
