Data leads to better decisions
Embedding climate action is central to the Council’s strategic framework for the future as part of the 2024-34 Long-term Plan (LTP). This reflects both our responsibility to addressing climate change and our understanding that many of the decisions we make influence the carbon emissions and climate change resilience of the city we serve.
This action area reflects our ongoing commitment to improving the integration of climate change considerations into all areas of our work. This includes providing relevant and useful data and analysis and integrating climate change into our policies, processes, culture, capability and decision-making.
Below is a summary of our approaches. For full details, read the Te Atakura – First to Zero 2024 update document (4.7MB PDF).
Evidence-based approach
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has highlighted that climate change impacts and risks are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage. Our focus is to better understand our emissions and potential local impacts, and to help inform climate adaptation decision-making for both the Council and the capital.
Setting policy
The Council’s 2023 Emissions Reduction Plan sets our emissions goals and outlines projects funded in the 2024 LTP that will reduce the Council’s emissions and enable process improvements. These include reducing landfill emissions, electrifying our vehicle fleet and transitioning Council-owned buildings and facilities away from fossil fuel use. These projects reduce Council emissions, the city’s emissions and allow us to lead by example.
Approved in May 2023, the Climate Adaptation Community Engagement Roadmap outlines the Council’s commitment to collaborating with communities on climate change response. The first three phases of the roadmap have been funded in the 2024 LTP, along with a pilot of community planning processes starting in late 2025.
Improving our decision making
As our understanding of climate change risks and opportunities grows, we are also improving our understanding of how to increase resilience and enable emission reductions for the Council and the city. This understanding is integrated into decision-making and operations.
Climate disclosure project
As part of our continued membership of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, we report into the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project). CDP is a non-profit organisation that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states, and regions. This enables better environmental reporting through transparency and accountability. In 2023, over 23,000 companies and 1,200 cities, states, and regions disclosed their climate actions through CDP.
Wellington City Council has been sharing Wellington’s climate journey through this platform on an annual basis since 2014. Key disclosures include the city’s annual greenhouse gas emissions inventories, climate change risks, mitigation and adaptation targets, climate action strategies and plans, and the implementation and monitoring of our climate actions.