Presenter/Producer: Erin Jones

Guests:

Greg Mullins  - Climate Council - Councillor, Former Commissioner of Fire & Rescue NSW

Timestamp- 00.07

Greg Mullins is an internationally recognised expert in responding to major bushfires and natural disasters and developed a keen interest in the linkages between climate change and extreme weather events. He coordinated responses to many major natural disasters over more than 2 decades and retired as Commissioner of Fire & Rescue NSW in January 2017.

During his 39 year career he served as President, Vice President and Board Chair of the Australasian Fire & Emergency Service Authorities’ Council, Deputy Chair of the NSW State Emergency Management Committee, Australian Director of the International Fire Chiefs Association of Asia, NSW representative on the Australian Emergency Management Committee, Australian representative on the UN’s International Search & Rescue Advisory Committee, and as a member of the NSW Bushfire Coordinating Committee. He is currently Chair of the NSW Ambulance Service Advisory Board.

In 2004 he was invited to address the International Fire Science Conference in Ireland on the impacts of climate change on emergency services. As acting Chair of the NSW State Emergency Management Committee in 2005-6 he re-established a Climate Change Working Group focussed on adaptation and was a member of the NSW Government’s Climate Change Council from 2007-16.

He worked with bushfire fighting authorities in the USA, Canada, France and Spain during a Churchill Fellowship in 1995, studied at the US National Fire Academy in 2001-02, and represented Australian emergency services at many international forums. Upon retirement he rejoined the volunteer bushfire brigade where he started in 1972, and also volunteers as a bush regenerator.

We talk with Greg about the recent extreme fire conditions in Queensland and NSW - in the first week of Spring, and what the future of fire means in the context of climate change

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/author/greg-mullins/

Tim Chittenden - Queensland Rural Fire Service - South Western Regional Manager

Timestamp - 32:51

Tim heads up a region that is larger than the state of Victoria and has 6000 volunteer fire fighters. 

We talk to Tim to get an on the ground perspective of what fire fighting in the age of a changing climate looks like, and when towns are running out of water.

Greg McGarvie - ACE-EV

https://www.ace-ev.com.au/

Timestamp - 52:47

ACE -EV who will later this month start taking reservations on their Australian built electric vehicles, have just signed MOUs with Flinders University in South Australia to work on EV autonomy; and with The University of Queensland on the development of 'green plastics'

https://www.ace-ev.com.au/latest-news/