Early last month, the incoming German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who is currently President of the Group of Seven, announced Germany's intention of establishing an international 'carbon club.' The later in January, he followed up with more pressure on polluters at the Davos World Economic Forum declaring it was time for a 'paradigm shift' in climate policy:
"Europe has decided to become the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050; Germany wants to reach that goal in 2045 already … a monumental task, but a task that we can and will master ... We will no longer wait for the slowest and least ambitious ... Instead, we will lead by example, and we will turn climate action from a cost factor into competitive advantage by agreeing on joint minimum standards."
It's a timely message to the Australian government with the federal election approaching. As a notorious climate laggard and a leading fossil fuel exporter, Australia is likely to be one of those most adversely impacted. And yet, as a nation we are of course, among those best placed to benefit economically from the transition to renewables, to become a renewables Superpower – pending the implementation of appropriate policies. These are among the important issues we must all get our heads around before entering the voting booth in the much anticipated election, now likely in May.
BREAZE Inc. will be talking about climate change with local candidates in the upcoming election and will be passing what we learn back to you. Stay tuned.
The G-CPH staff and BREAZE Inc. volunteers continue to engage with communities across the region, contacting local Shire officers and community organisations in the quest to identify renewable energy projects within the not-for-profit sector. If you know of any organisations that might be potential clients for the G-CPH please register your interest via the G-CPH website - or email us at
The BREAZE Inc. Public Fund is currently working with G-CPH Project Manager, Sowmya Nagaraj on a feasibility study for its next Social Solar project. More on this in coming months.
SLB talks will be beginning again in February. On 16 February at 12:30 log on to hear Ballarat Public Transport Advocate, Ben Lever, present 'Your Guide to Sustainable Transport.' This event will be presented via Zoom and streamed live onto the Smart Living Ballarat Facebook page. A recording of the event will be available on the Smart Living Ballarat Facebook page instantly after the event.
If you have a passion for climate action and ideas about how you can help BREAZE achieve its mission, please note BREAZE members are welcome to attend monthly Board meetings. Any member interested in attending should email me –
All the best
Mary
President, BREAZE Inc.
Transport is Australia's third-largest source of emissions, and its fastest-growing source. The total phase-out of petrol and diesel cars is still a long way away, so how can we reduce our transport emissions in the meantime?
This month for Smart Living Ballarat we chat to Ben Lever from the Public Transport Users Association about how people can take steps now to replace car trips with cleaner modes like walking, cycling and public transport - not only reducing their carbon footprint but getting a lot of health and wellbeing benefits as well.
This event will be presented via Zoom and streamed live onto the Smart Living Ballarat Facebook page. A recording of the event will be available on the Smart Living Ballarat Facebook page instantly after the event.
To join live and be able to participate in the Q+A, please register for the Zoom presentation.
This free talk is hosted by Smart Living Ballarat for BREAZE Inc. in collaboration with the City of Ballarat and is part of a free series of monthly sustainability workshops presented every 3rd Wednesday of the month.
Happy New Year to all BREAZE members and friends and welcome to another year of climate action and to rolling out more renewable energy across the not-for-profit sector. In case anyone had any doubts, 2022 is going to be more challenging than 2021, and obviously I am not simply talking about Omicron. We now have eight years in which to hit those goals for 1.5C set by the Paris CoP in 2015. While some have observed we have already overshot that scenario, the need to maintain and build public momentum, no matter how minimal, offers good reason to hold the faith. Communities have a key role to play in reducing emissions, transitioning to renewables and raising awareness about how to live sustainably. This year will see the launch of the Zero Emissions Ballarat (ZEB) Plan for achieving zero emissions across the community by 2030. The Plan will require everyone who cares about the future and understands the need for radical action to get on board in promoting the various elements of the Plan. Now is not the time to be cynical.
Record temperatures continue to be recorded around the globe, notably in the Arctic and in The Guardian a report this week that Australia's hottest temperature of 50.7C – originally recorded inland at Oodnadatta, SA in January 1960 – was recently equalled at the coastal town of Onslow in WA. Significant because it is a coastal town.
The Project Control Group for the G-CPH, comprising Sowmya Nagaraj (Project Manager), Taryn Lane (Hepburn Energy Manager representing the Hepburn branch) and BREAZE Inc – Peter Boadle, Mary Debrett and Paul Duggan, with Comms/Admin Officer, Sam Rodgers – held a planning meeting this week to refine focus for the final six months of our current contract with Sustainability Victoria. The Community Engagement process being undertaken by the PCG has so far identified over 20 potential projects, in every LGA with the exception of the West Wimmera. Feasibility studies for some of these projects will now be undertaken by Sowmya, the Hub's Project Manager, while others will be presented to the Hub's advisory group – representatives from the 11 LGAs of the Grampians region – for approval for the appointment of an external contractor. BREAZE Inc. volunteers will continue the community engagement process, contacting local Shire officers and community organisations in the quest to identify renewable energy projects within the not-for-profit sector. If you know of any organisations that might be potential clients for the G-CPH please contact .
On 11 January the G-CPH hosted its third community energy webinar - A Community Battery for Ballan? - with Taryn Lane and Sowmya Nagaraj explaining some of the benefits and possibilities of community batteries along with the approval processes involved. If you are interested in the topic you can find a video recording of the webinar on the BREAZE Inc Youtube channel. If you live in Ballan we also invite you complete the online survey on this topic - it only takes a few minutes.
SLB talks will be beginning again in February. Please check the SLB Facebook site for updates on the February talk topic.
In case you missed it the talk on December 15 was Your Guide to Woowookarung with Friends of the Canadian Corridor. You can still watch it on the Smart Living Ballarat Facebook site -https://www.facebook.com/smartlivingballarat Smart Living Ballarat will be back in 2022 with a new talks schedule.
Following the November 2021 Annual General Meeting I am pleased to announce the Board for 2022:
Board Meetings
If you have a passion for climate action and ideas about how you can help BREAZE achieve its mission, please note BREAZE members are welcome to attend monthly Board meetings. Any member interested in attending should email me –
All the best
Mary
Mary DebrettPresident, January 2022
A $1 donation to our Social Solar program funds 1 watt of renewable energy and more renewable energy means fewer emissions! How good is that? But One Dollar for One Watt equals even more.
Each time a combined total of $1,500 is donated BREAZE, we will install 1.5kW of solar panels on the roof of a social housing property. Depending on the size of the house, 3kW of solar panels may be needed, so BREAZE will do this when a combined total of $3,000 has been donated. (For those of you who watch the price of solar panels, you will know that 1 watt of solar costs a bit more than $1, but the shortfall will be made up with other money.)
Here are some options to consider when you think about how much to donate:
And don't forget, even $1 is fine because it is enough to install 1 watt of solar power!
BREAZE's One Dollar for One Watt project involves BREAZE partnering with Uniting Care Housing and other social housing providers to select suitable properties for solar panels or solar panels and batteries. It also involves partnering with other fund raising groups and organisations to raise the necessary money. If you are interested in fund raising for this great project, then click here.
Just so we can all understand how important affordable electricity is to people, here is a comment from the CEO of Uniting Housing Victoria.
'Being able to afford housing is becoming an increasing challenge for many in our community. Even though rents for social housing properties are held to 25% of income, increasing power bills are often proving too much of a challenge, forcing people to turn off lights and fans and heaters, or in some cases, have their power turned off.
In conjunction with BREAZE and your help, we aim to do something about this. Starting in the Central Highlands, and doing one property at a time as we can find the funds, we intend to install a minimum of 1.5 kW of solar on all our properties. This will make a real difference because it will result in ongoing lower power bills for our clients who are presently finding it hard - with renewable energy eventually all Uniting Housing Victoria affordable housing clients will find it just that bit easier to get by.'
If you would like to donate to One Dollar for One Watt, then do so by choosing one of the options
We also ask any former members who might have let their membership lapse top please re-join. Your membership fees play a very important role in keeping BREAZE Inc operations going – paying for the public liability insurance that we need for our volunteers and affiliated groups and for our annual auditing which enables us to continue as a charitable organisation.
As the year draws to a close, the disappointments of the Glasgow CoP and Australia's climate policy failures are being displaced for some by hopes that strengthened commitment from the financial and business sector may yet accelerate decarbonisation and contain runaway climate change. Battles over targets and the cost of climate action, that ignore climate science, reflect how little some have learned from the Covid pandemic. And you can be forgiven if you missed the big environmental news of this week, that new disturbing faults have been discovered in the Antarctic, adjacent to the vast Thwaites glacier, with predictions that its destabilisation of the ice shelf will likely see glacier breakaway in under 5 years, accelerating the ice melt and rising sea levels. While the immediate sea level rise is predicted to be around 2 feet, ultimately the break will accelerate the melting of West Antarctica with rises of 3 metres + predicted in the next 20-30 years. The melting of the West Antarctic ice shelf is one of the 9 tipping points identified as signalling significant irreversible change. This was headline news in the UK and US – but apparently not deemed newsworthy by Australia's news media.
This year the City of Ballarat's endorsement of the community-wide aspirational zero emissions target of 2030 was a watershed moment – and a long held target for BREAZE. Now all we need to do is make sure we get everyone on board in implementing the Plan, which Ironbark Sustainability is currently developing for Council. BREAZE will let you know via our e-newsletter when the Draft Plan is open for community feedback – sometime in the first half of 2022. Please be ready to volunteer to help in driving the campaign. Ballarat can be a model for other regional cities. As past experience has proven, if we work together we can make a difference. Check out Ballarat's emissions profile on Ironbark's Snapshot tool.
Having signed the contract with Sustainability Victoria to lead the G-CPH back in July, the end of lockdown meant we could finally launch the Hub on 12 November, which we did at Halls Gap with Minister d'Ambrosio officiating. The project at Halls Gap, solar and battery for the buildings of the volunteers who maintain the Botanical Gardens , will mean they can now have the benefits of power, without the poles and wires that usually accompany it.
Volunteer Convenor of the Halls Gap Botanical Gardens, Margo Siestma presented Minister d'Ambrosio with a book on Gariwerd plant species to mark the occasion.
The talk on December 15 was Your Guide to Woowookarung with Friends of the Canadian Corridor. If you missed it you can still watch it on the Smart Living Ballarat Facebook site -https://www.facebook.com/smartlivingballarat Smart Living Ballarat will be back in 2022 with a new talks schedule.
Longstanding BREAZE Board member, Paul Duggan stepped down from the board this year. Paul has made a huge contribution to BREAZE over the years. He will be continuing as a BREAZE volunteer via his membership of Grampians Community Power Hub's Project Control Group. BREAZE Facebook followers will have seen some of Paul's posts from his recent road trip into the Wimmera, part of the Grampians Community Power Hub community engagement process, raising regional awareness of the benefits of renewable energy to the community.
Another long standing member, Peter Reid, has also stepped down from the Board. Peter, an engineer by profession and a highly efficient project manager, has driven the BREAZE Social Solar Program for many years, and was also key member of the Ballarat Community Power Hub Pilot - program that ran from 2017-2020. We are delighted that Peter will be retaining involvement in BREAZE activities as an advisor/mentor to the Grampians Community Power Hub and as a member of the BREAZE Public Fund Committee.
If you have a passion for climate action and ideas about how you can help BREAZE achieve its mission, please note BREAZE members are welcome to attend monthly Board meetings. Any member interested in attending should email me –
All the best
Mary
Dr Mary DebrettPresident, December 2021
The Glasgow CoP26 has come and gone and Australia has once more proven itself fossil of the world. While the last minute shift in the final CoP statement to phasing coal down, not out, has generally seen the summit cast as a failure, Richie Merzian, a former Australian government representative to the United Nations Climate Change Conference and director of climate and energy at The Australia Institute, points to the two methane-related initiatives as significant gains. As The Saturday Paper reported, 'One of those methane-related initiatives was the proposal from the United States and European Union for a global partnership to cut emissions of methane. More than 100 of the world’s governments signed on. Australia was not one of them.' Australia now is the world’s biggest exporter of methane.
The key objective of the Glasgow CoP26 was to drive nations to increase the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) emissions cuts they had committed to in 2015. According to Merzian, the Agreement reached at the Paris CoP25 of 2015 had three goals:
“The first one’s mitigation, the second one is adaptation, and the third one is aligning finance. Really, the last six months has been about that third goal, the most overlooked one – how do we realign finance to actually invest in the solution, rather than keep investing in the problem.”
The second Glasgow CoP26 initiative, from which Australia was also absent, was a commitment by 36+ European and other English speaking nations, 'to stop state funding of all fossil fuels through their various development agencies'. It's an initiative that will hopefully see more investment finance shifted from the fossil fuel sector into renewable energy technologies and projects unconnected to CCS. So, despite our national shame we can perhaps take some comfort that others are moving forward.
Many thanks to all BREAZE members and friends who have logged on for the Smart Living Ballarat talks throughout the year. Thanks too, to our multi-talented Host, Sam Rodgers, for her enthusiasm and unerring ability to keep coming up with new topics and speakers to address the local appetite for sustainable lifestyle options. Hopefully 2022 will see in person meetings return!
On 26 November 2021, newly appointed Project Manager for the BREAZE-hosted Grampians Community Power Hub, Sowmya Nagaraj, will be talking with Brett about the work of the Grampians Community Power hub. Sowmya, who has a Masters in Engineering (Sustainable Energy) previously worked on the Victorian Healthy Homes program.
The G-CPH Project Control Group was officially launched by the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Lily DAmbrosio, on 12 November at Halls Gap Botanic Gardens, the site of an off-grid solar/inverter/battery project that the G-CPH has approved for a feasibility study. The launch was also attended by the Mayor of Northern Grampians, Cr Tony Driscoll, members of Sustainability Victoria, members of the Community Association of Halls Gap and members of Pomonal Energy and BREAZE Inc. volunteers.
The G-CPH continues to engage with the 11 local government areas of the Grampians region to identify community energy projects, with the goal of developing a pipeline of shovel ready projects. The program is delivered by Sustainability Victoria on behalf of the Victorian Government. If you, or anyone you know, has an idea about how a local community group might benefit from a renewable energy project – solar array, solar plus battery, energy audit or energy saving appliances such as heat pump or air-conditioner – please get in touch.
Members of the BREAZE Inc. Board have also formed a sub-committee to work on events and advocacy related to ESD. If you are interested in being involved, please email
If you have a passion for climate action and ideas about how you can help BREAZE achieve its mission, please note BREAZE members are welcome to attend monthly Board meetings. Any member interested in attending should email me –
All the best
Mary
Dr Mary DebrettPresident, November 2021
BREAZE Inc., lead partner on the Grampians Community Power Hub (CPH) and Hepburn branch partner, Hepburn Wind, were delighted to have the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Lily D’Ambrosio, launch the Grampians CPH on Friday the 12 November 2021. The Launch, held at Halls Gap Botanical Gardens was also attended by Mayor Tony Driscoll of Northern Grampians Shire, Alicia Darvall, Director of Regions and Partnerships, Sustainability Victoria, members of the Community Association of Halls Gap, members of the G-CPH Roundtable Advisory Group representing Horsham, Yarriambiack, Wimmera Development Association, and members of Pomonal Power.
BREAZE Inc. is delighted to have Sowmya Nargaraj on board as Project Manager of the Grampians Community Power Hub. Sowmya, who has Masters in Engineering (Sustainable Energy) RMIT, previously worked as a coordinator for the Victorian Healthy Homes program, helping to make homes more energy efficient and cutting GHG emissions. She brings both expertise and experience in the renewable energy sector to the G-CPH team. As she explains below, her passion for climate action goes back to her childhood:
"Since being a little girl, I’ve seen the environment around me change very drastically and have experienced a feeling of helplessness surround me when I first learnt about climate change and how our activities are contributing majorly to the deterioration of the planet.
The lack of Climate Crisis awareness and Energy Equity in the Australian community has become even more evident while delivering the Victorian Healthy Homes Project at AEF. Bridging these gaps by bringing awareness and investigating opportunities to address them has been a goal of mine as I strongly believe that they can become a reality when everyone works together to have a cleaner and greener environment to live in.
When I came across this opportunity, I was very keen to express my interest in the role as I believe that I would be able to actively contribute to our communities becoming more resilient and further equipped to tackle the Climate issues. "
As an Engineer in Sustainable Energy, Sowmya brings valuable technical know how and will be undertaking feasibility studies for the G-CPH as well as assisting in the earlier stages of assessing the viability of projects identified in the community engagement process.
Having Sowmya on board as Project Manager means more time for community engagement for the team of BREAZE volunteers, which includes, Peter Boadle, Paul Duggan, Mary Debrett plus mentorship from the 2017-2020 Ballarat CPH Project Control Group, also hosted by BREAZE, Peter Reid, Ian Rossiter and Ross Irving.
Sowmya and the BREAZE team will also be assisted by a newly appointed part-time Communications and Administration Officer.
Already known to many in Ballarat as the Host of BREAZE's Smart Living Ballarat Talks program, the Hub's newly appointed Communications and Administrative Officer, Sam Rodgers, has a Bachelor of Environmental Science (Sustainability Management) and is also accomplished in media/communications and events coordination. Sam previously held the position of Sustainability Officer, with Wyndham City Council and is a terrific asset to the G-CPH team.
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