Over a three-week period in October 2020, 346 respondents participated in an online survey as part of the initial engagement stage in the development of the Borough of Queenscliffe’s Climate Emergency Response Plan. 12 primary school students from the Borough of Queenscliffe area also participated in a workshop.
These early engagements were an opportunity to gain a general understanding of the Borough community’s priorities for the development of a Climate Emergency Response Plan. The results of this survey were presented to a panel of community members, who used the data collected to shape and inform the draft response plan.
Here's a quick summary of what we heard from the community:
Survey respondents were significantly concerned about the impacts of climate change, and are primarily motivated to reduce its impacts on people (including future generations) and the natural environment of the Borough. School students also expressed a desire to be active participants in a climate emergency response.
Renewable energy investment was consistently the most popular project suggestion with both survey respondents and school students. This project suggestion ranked highly in both prompted and unprompted responses, and regardless of who was taking responsibility for the action (both Council-led and community-led renewable energy initiatives were highly popular). Changes to waste management and behaviour also ranked highly for both groups among suggested actions.
Survey respondents also tended to feel the plan should be ambitious, setting targets for Council and the community to become zero-carbon within a decade.
To read the full results of both the survey and the workshop, download a copy of the full results report(PDF, 2MB).