Melbourne’s Yarra City Council demands residents switch to plant-based diets to stop climate change

A city council has encouraged its residents to go vegetarian as part of a plan to save the suburbs from “the brink of climate and ecological collapse”.

Melbourne’s Yarra City Council, which is responsible for major suburbs including Richmond, Collingwood and Fitzroy, voted unanimously on Tuesday night to adopt the 81-page Climate Emergency Plan.

The 2024-2030 plan urges council residents to “take action on the climate emergency” by switching to a plant-based diet, being more active, using public transport more and “being more resource conscious”.

“There is substantial evidence to suggest that emissions associated with current diets – particularly high and increasing consumption of animal products – are likely to make it impossible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” said the plan, which was endorsed by the Herald Sunthus.

“It is widely recognised that a shift to a plant-based diet is critical in responding to the climate crisis.”

More specifically, the plan identified deforestation and methane emissions from livestock, transportation and refrigeration equipment as major negative impacts of “animal product consumption.”

The council has also advised residents to transfer their pensions and bank accounts to companies that do not invest in fossil fuels.

Yarra City Council has previously been in the news for its ‘woke’ actions, including the introduction of a $115 ‘rubbish levy’ and its refusal to fly the Australian flag.

In the plan, the council asked residents to switch to a vegetarian diet and make more use of active and public transport (Photo: Fitzroy)

The new demands are part of a broader effort to mitigate climate change and ‘decolonise’ Melbourne’s landscape.

The council claims the plan is “a guarantee that we have heard the calls for climate action and a fairer and more just society”.

“It is important for the Council to ensure that the climate emergency is taken into account in all decision-making so that our assets, services, activities and policies actively reduce emissions,” the report said.

Some of the targets mentioned in the plan include a 20 percent increase in the number of people traveling by scooter or bicycle by 2027, and 40 percent by 2032.

The plan also demonstrated the council’s commitment to ‘its formal relationship with the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung’ – the local Indigenous people – by ‘integrating Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung knowledge and practices into the way we care for the country’.

‘To move forward, we need to look back. Across the country, knowledge and practices from traditional owners are being adopted to inform and improve land management and promote sustainability …

“We need to change the narrative and the way we look at our environment. We need to change our vision to reflect the knowledge and practices of Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, which are passed on through stories,” the plan states.

Yarra City Council was one of the first councils in Australia to declare a climate emergency and in 2012 became the first council in Victoria to be certified carbon neutral.

The council’s new demands are part of a broader effort to mitigate climate change and ‘decolonise’ Melbourne’s landscape (Photo: Fitzroy)

In the Climate Emergency Plan, the council aims to plant 200 native trees each year. The specific aim is to provide a place for the grey flying fox to forage in winter and to promote native fauna.

It is claimed that the emphasis on native greenery will ‘provide suitable habitats for our native wildlife, while minimising resource intensive maintenance practices’.

‘An adequate climate emergency response means rethinking our relationship with nature. It means facing up to the damage done to the land since colonisation and working to repair this damage with the knowledge and support of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung,’ the plan says.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Yarra City Council for comment.