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CAUL Hub sponsored and spoke at the STREAMS Connect Summit, hosted by Indigilab in Sydney. This forum and workshop focused on how Indigenous and non-Indigenous scientists, policy makers and educators can work together to address climate change and contribute to Australia’s response to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

During their presentation, Luke Briscoe (CEO of Indigilab and member of CAUL’s Indigenous Advisory Group) and Dr Cathy Oke (CAUL’s Knowledge Broker) identified CAUL’s Indigenous Engagement and Participation framework as a potential cultural framework to align with the SDGs. Indigilab is now in the process of developing a Summit report, which will be publicly available and sent to the government. As a member of the Indigenous Peoples Major Group on SDGs, Indigilab will also be communicating outcomes from the Summit with this group.

As part of the New Student Precinct Festival, CAUL Hub and the University of Melbourne Community Garden held a planting and propagation session. The all-day event was centred on Art, Design, Sustainability and Indigenous Engagement at the Parkville Campus.

The little plants that were potted will go into the new student precinct sometime next year.

Image credit: Kirsten Parris via Twitter

Vulnerability to severe heat waves is becoming an issue of inequality as global temperatures rise. With the Northern Hemisphere facing its warmest summer on record this year that led to numerous deaths, ABC’s Blueprint for living asked how equipped Australian cities are to cope with the reality of 50 degrees within the next few decades.

According to Associate Professor Marco Amati who was interviewed in an article and radio podcast, we urgently need to start planning and adapting as we enter “unknown territory” with huge economic and health consequences. While some of the necessary infrastructural changes are costly and investment-heavy, there are simple solutions such as painting roofs white, urban greening and adapting our schedules that can reduce harm from heat while providing other benefits. Importantly, we also need to limit the severity of these future weather extremes by tackling climate change while it is still an option.

Marco Amati is leading the CAUL Hub’s Urban Systems for Liveability project, which includes research on urban vegetation to mitigate heat. Find out more here.

Featured image credit: Vincent dan Dam via flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)