Hello, Warimi, and welcome to our May newsletter. It’s been a busy month with many climate-related activities and events across the Inner West. Our members have been out and about learning about the challenges of a warming planet as well as strategies we, as individuals, governments and communities, can put in place both to reduce our contribution to climate change and to help us live on a warmer planet in the future. There’s also been a lot happening politically, so let’s jump into it!
Some big announcements from the NSW Government
We’ll start this month’s newsletter with two big announcements from the state government that will help our local community’s journey to zero emissions. The first was the announcement that the Inner West LGA will be getting 136 new public EV chargers in the next year. This is a game changer for people who want to stop burning fossil fuels to get around but aren’t able to charge at home – we know there are a lot of Newtown residents in this situation! We’re hopeful that some of these new chargers will be located in or around Newtown, adding to the chargers installed by the City of Sydney on Brown St and Carrillon Ave and adding to an increasingly compelling case for why now might be the right time to buy an EV.
The second announcement is that home batteries will be getting cheaper in NSW from 1 November. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to add a battery to your solar installation this might be the sign you’ve been looking for – you’ll just have to wait five months! Home batteries are important because they soak up solar in the day, when it’s abundant and cheap, and let you use it at night when power prices are higher. This also helps take pressure off the electricity grid which should help bring prices down over time.
Of course, it’s not all good news. This month’s Inner West Council meeting was postponed before it could consider a petition from over 1000 local residents to speed up improvements the Inner West bike network. Dozens of groups, including ours, contributed to the development of the Inner West Council’s cycling strategy back in 2022 but we’ve been disappointed by the lack of any real progress since the final strategy and action plan were adopted last year. We wrote to Council this month to remind them that building a safe and convenient walking and cycling network, to make it easier for more people to get around without burning fossil fuels, is one of the most important things they could be doing for the climate.
What’s been happening
Some of our members caught the Sydney premiere of a new climate-focused film, Walambaa Ngiiyani Stronger Together, at Dendy Newtown. The documentary followed a group of school students, Pacific Climate Warriors and Gomeroi custodians and looked at the impact of the coal and gas industry. It was a moving and inspiring account of how a diverse group came together to share culture and make a difference through their climate activism. The film screening was hosted by Move Beyond Coal, who have also been holding demonstrations at local MPs’ offices to protest continued coal and gas expansions in Australia.
We were invited to attend some very special presentations by students from the University of Sydney. The human geography students have been working in groups to investigate how to close local high streets to cars for one day a month, and open them up for use by people and local businesses. The students found that support for their plans was high, with the south end of King Street included in some of the plans. We were invited because regular car-free days on King St and Enmore Rd is something we’ve been pushing for with local councils and state government, and also something we’ve been talking about with local businesses and community groups. We’ll keep working with the Committee of Sydney, who identified King St and Enmore Rd as great places for regular car-free days, to push other stakeholders to bring this idea to life.
We’re excited by the news that the new Newtown Enmore Business Community has been launched and is working to keep our neighbourhood vibrant and thriving. We look forward to working with the Business Community towards our goal of a fast, fair and fun local transition to a zero emissions community. Let us know if you’re involved with a local business and would like some help to reduce your emissions and save money on your energy bills. Also let us know if you know a local business that’s a leader in climate action or would like to become one – we’d love to meet them and profile them on our website and social media!
Some of our volunteers continue to work with neighbouring Inner West climate groups to bring the educational program Speaking for the Planet to Inner West schools. If you have any contacts with local schools or P&Cs please get in touch – hello@newtownclimate.org.
Upcoming events
Our friends at Climate Action Burwood Canada Bay are organising a Smart Energy Expo on Sunday 23 June at MLC in Burwood. We’ve been invited to share a stall with other local climate groups so please reply to this email if you are able to help out for an hour or two!
Then the following week 1 Million Women, a global organisation of women committed to climate action, is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary with a Festival of Solutions at Carriageworks from 10am on Sunday 29 June. Come along to be inspired by slow fashion icons, world leaders, zero wasters, women from the front line of climate change, superstar musicians and a cast of experts. The event will also feature a Solutions Marketplace with over 40 stalls bursting with ideas for living a life that’s lighter on the planet. Get your tickets here.
Photo of the month
Newtown Climate member Amanda with Professor Kurt Iveson, architects from COX architecture and human geography students from the University of Sydney, who shared their plans for regular car-free days on local high streets like King St.
For more photos of cool climate-related things in and around Newtown, be sure to follow our Instagram!
Membership news
We’re coming up to the end of our membership year on 30 June. Our committee has agreed that anyone who signs up for a membership between January and June 2024 will have their membership rolled over into the 2024/25 financial year – so you’ll be a member until June 2025. So if you aren’t yet a member of Newtown Climate and would like to support us please consider signing up.
Memberships start at $5 and for a local community group like ours, every member – and every membership fee – really does count.
If you’re an existing member with a membership expiring on 30 June we’ll be writing to you and asking you to extend your membership into 2024/25. As always, thanks to all our members for providing the support (financial and otherwise) that makes our work possible.
More opportunities to get involved
We have plenty of ideas that we can take forward when we have a few more volunteers to help us out. If that’s you please send us an email, come along to one of our Sunday morning coffee meetings (see below) or join our Whatsapp group. We love working with locals to take forward their ideas for local climate action, so if you see any good opportunities to accelerate local decarbonisation just let us know!
We mainly communicate through a WhatsApp group. Reply to this email if you’d like to be added to it. We also meet most Sunday mornings at Ariana’s Place on King Street. All welcome, but please email us (or message the WhatsApp group) in advance to make sure we’ll be there!
And as ever, a reminder that our website has a bunch of handy guides, articles and links that you might want to read or share with your friends. Let us know if you come across any excellent resources that you think we should add, or if there are questions you’d like us to answer.
That’s all for now! So, Yanu in Dharug language. Stay warm!