Contributed
by Lynne Hickling
It’s easy to feel despondent about climate change when the Sunday before last was the hottest day globally recorded, and then this worrying statistic was superseded on the very next day.
But there is hope. Whakatāne District Council has just adopted it district’s climate change strategy and action plan for 2024-7. Their first plan being adopted in 2020.
Action begets hope. When can we expect a climate change prevention and adaptation strategy and action plan from Ōpōtiki District Council?
The council understands the importance and urgency of action to both reduce the impacts of climate change by preventing or reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases (mitigation) and be ready for the impacts of climate change now and in the future (adaptation).
We take it seriously in our everyday actions – we consider the impacts of climate change on all our council decisions as a standing section of council papers. Of course, we also have many legislative requirements where climate change implications are baked into our decision-making – any decisions under the Resource Management Act, engineering decisions or matters related to water resources, building regulations, transport and so on.
Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions for our district also sits under our work to improve walking and cycling networks, at the same time providing opportunities to increase activity and decrease cars on our roads.
The work we do to reduce waste and divert greenwaste contributes to that reduction. And many other changes big and small – moving to LED streetlights (increasing energy efficiency), planting native trees and other greenspaces, and encouraging innovation and emission reduction through procurement and contracts.
We work closely with other agencies, particularly Toi Moana Bay of Plenty Regional Council to understand the impact of coast inundation (sea level rise plus storm surges), flooding impacts, and other climate changes we can expect. We also encourage our communities to take their own action.
A good starting point for some households is Future Fit – an online interactive tool developed by Auckland Council that we have signed up for our community to use. It takes five minutes to get a snapshot of your footprint and you can form teams with friends, whānau or your workplace and compare and compete in footprint reduction activities.
We have started work towards a climate change strategy bringing a lot of this work together and understanding future actions we need to take.
We commissioned a report to get the ball rolling and I think people can expect to see more in this space in the coming year or two.