Members of the Bega Valley Shire community are making a significant contribution to the fight against climate change in an effort to show local action can make a difference, according to a university study.
Their efforts have been documented in Comparing local energy conflicts in NSW Australia: moving to climate generosity by Dr Jonathan Marshall, a researcher from the University of Technology Sydney.
His study analysed three rural NSW towns: Lismore, Narrabri, and Bega, and local endeavours to mitigate the effects of climate change. Dr Marshall calls it “climate generosity.” This means improving the local environment, even in the absence of compulsion.
Climate sceptics often argue there is little reason for Australians to do anything about climate change because the main polluters are China and India. Dr Marshall cites the sceptics’ view that we are only a small part of the world and contribute little to global pollution.
Don’t worry about China and India
“So, I’m arguing with climate generosity, you don’t have to worry about whether India or China are being fair or not, you just go out and help people to make the transformation,” he says.
Dr Marshall sees the work being done around Bega to mitigate climate change as an example of “climate generosity.” He points to the efforts of the Bega community organisation, Clean Energy for Eternity (CEFE), which provides free solar panels to residents and businesses, helping locals to switch from using fossil fuels to renewable energy.
As a result, all the buildings in the coastal town of Tathra are now powered by solar energy. CEFE’s work will help the Bega Valley Shire to meet its 100 per cent renewable energy target by 2030.
Enthusiastic community involvement has been the key to CEFE’s success. Secretary Prue Kelly points to the impressive response to CEFE’s 2006 effort in mobilising as many people as possible on a local oval to spell out the words Keep Tathra Cool.
Local engagement is the driving force
Key CEFE members were unsure how many people would turn up as the plan was only advertised by word-of-mouth. But President Mathew Knot was overwhelmed by 3000 people willing to participate in a town that had a population of around 1500 at the time.
“Local engagement comes from the community, it does not come from the top down,” Kelly said.
Dr Marshall noted that the community’s involvement with CEFE and its commitment to combatting climate change stood out compared to other rural NSW towns.
“I came to Bega excited by something I had not seen before,” he said, referring to the level of community involvement in exercising a positive influence over energy choices.
Dr Marshall points to work undertaken by Columbia University political theorist Timothy Mitchell, who argues the widespread use of coal as a source of energy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries helped to pave the way for mass democracy.
For the first time in history, coal miners could unionise and make political demands, supported by their industrial power, to shut down an entire energy system.
Mitchell points out that coal miners lost their industrial clout once oil overtook coal to become the world’s largest energy source in 1964.
Big Oil’s ‘climate oligarchy’
“The political potential of oil is quite different. It’s liquid. Producing it does not require sending large workforces underground. It’s harder for workers to interrupt the supply of energy and use such interruptions to build political demands,” he said.
In this way, according to Mitchell and Marshall, wealthy global oil companies changed a form of climate democracy into a climate oligarchy.
Dr Marshall’s study identifies how the Bega Valley offers an example of a local community wrestling back control over energy choices. With every climate demonstration, solar panel installation, reform of regional policy and community event, local people are driving change.
The Bega Valley Shire is on the right track, he concludes.
