Wāhanga tūmahi: Ētahi atu kaupapa tāonenui-whānui
Action area: Other city-wide initiatives

Climate Conversations is a series of publicly facilitated conversations to actively engage with the Wellington community on the incoming impacts of climate change and the ways the city can reduce its contribution to warming.

View Community Climate Conversation on YouTube

It's time to kōrero about climate change, so we can understand how it’s affecting the capital, and what we can all do to make a positive difference.

In this webinar, staff from Wellington City Council’s climate, community and engagement teams share their expertise. Pip Wheaton (Principal Advisor Climate Action) outlines the causes of global climate change and what this means for Wellington. Then Kaeden Watts (Principal Engagement Advisor Engagement - Climate Change Adaptation) talks about the impacts of climate change in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, and how we can adapt to them, as well as encompassing learnings from te ao Māori in our response to climate change. Lastly, Community Team Leader Mark Noyes rounds off the conversation by sharing an update on the mahi already being led by communities across the city, and explains ways others can get involved.

Check out the Q&A session too, and if you have any other questions send them to climateaction@wcc.govt.nz

The actions in the Te Atakura Implementation Plan, combined with the work of Let's Get Wellington Moving, and policy changes by Central Government, are still not enough for Wellington to meet its carbon reduction goals.

We need to keep investigating what comes next so we can deliver on significant reductions by 2030 and the decades to come.

We approved funding to support the development of new ideas for reducing emissions. We'll outline these in our annual Te Atakura updates.

The Climate and Sustainability Fund supports people in Wellington city to undertake climate action, as part of the Council's Te Atakura - First to Zero climate action plan to create a culture of climate change action and reduce carbon emissions. The purpose of this fund is to encourage communities, schools, social enterprises and businesses to help meet our 2030 and 2050 carbon reduction goals.

Climate and Sustainability Fund

Te Atakura - First to Zero 2021 Update (465KB PDF)

A low carbon food network benefits our environment, health and resilience.

Projects include:

• finalising Council's Sustainable Food Procurement Plan
• community composting hubs
• Māori food sovereignty
• the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact
• adding sustainable food to our Green Network Plan and District Plan
• connecting with regional planning meetings.

Events are happening throughout Wellington to make our food system more sustainable, healthy, and vibrant.

Check out some of the sustainable food events , like Local Food Week and Bee Aware Month.

The Future Living Skills project supports behaviour change and promotes a lower-carbon lifestyle. It's based on a programme developed by the Sustainable Living Trust and helps residents to take individual action on climate change.

The programme starts early 2022.

You can find more information and learning material at Sustainable Living.org.nz

The Central City Green Network Plan will improve, increase and link diverse planting across the central city. The existing green network has gaps, and we need more green spaces to support population growth in the central city.

More green cover will:

• help moderate summer temperatures and strong winds
• reduce flood risk and water contamination by slowing and filtering rainfall.

We're exploring how we integrate this plan into our District Plan development.

Find out more about our Green Network Plan.

In 2021 we partnered with Victoria University to plant 28,000 trees in the outer green belt.

The project allows researchers and students to learn what native species and planting methods will absorb the most carbon.

News – Council and University form tree planting partnership 03.12.20

Ngā wai tuku kiri
Water is a gift

In Wellington, we sometimes take our plentiful water supply for granted. the Council's largest source of electricity use is pumping water through the city's networks. We must be efficient in how we:

• use water in our buildings
• address leaks in our water network
• protect our stormwater systems from pollution.

What we're doing

• Introducing water sensitive practices to the District Plan review process, including the need for future developments to demonstrate hydraulic neutrality/positivity.
• Integrating water solutions into our operations and capital project delivery, including infrastructure and management of public spaces and places.
• Encouraging water efficiency in new buildings, along with collection and reuse of water where possible.

We're exploring funding options for processing sewage sludge at the Southern Landfill.

Until we can better manage our sludge, we are limited in the amount of waste we can divert from landfill.

So far, we're reducing emissions from waste at Southern Landfill by:

• drilling more methane collection wells
• upgrading the generator that converts methane to energy
• adjusting our collection regime.

Changing what ends up at the landfill means changing what we buy. Everything we buy is made of natural resources or manufactured materials and has a carbon footprint from both making the product and getting it to us.

We can all make better choices and focus on avoiding the creation of waste that needs to go into a landfill.

Some quick wins are to buy less single-use and non-recyclable items, and removing organics like food, green waste and sewage sludge from the landfill as quickly and effectively as we can.

All of this is part of our Waste Strategy review, which will be finalised in 2022.

The circular economy attempts to get rid of waste in our economic system instead of focusing on reusing precious natural resources.

This involves manufacturers changing how and what they produce.

The Council's investigating how the circular economy could be included in our policy framework through our waste strategy review.