Around $30 million has been allocated to a range of climate action initiatives over the next decade, on top of the $226 million investment in cycleways, and the zero- and low-carbon transport options planned by Let’s Get Wellington Moving.
This growth in resources reflects our commitment to act on the climate change emergency declaration made in 2019, says Alison.
“Having the budget and community mandate to make changes means we can really move forward now. We’re planning a wide range of city-wide and Council-specific initiatives, everything from supporting people to get around the city differently, to providing seed funding to leverage business and community impact, and supporting residents to be motivated to take action.”
This work is crucial for the city’s net carbon zero future explains Alison, given the fact that we’re already experiencing more droughts and floods, weather variability, higher temperatures and global sea level rise due to a one degree rise in global temperatures.
“A world that’s four degrees warmer – our current trajectory – can only sustain one billion people but there’s more than seven billion of us already. So ‘business as usual’ is not an option; our current lifestyles are leading us towards significant political, social and economic upheaval. We need to make dramatic changes now to achieve only a 1.5 degree increase by 2050.”
The LTP funding means we have the money to support city-wide action to reduce emissions through Te Atakura, including:
- Engaging the city in climate action
- Supporting communities to plan how they will respond to the impacts of climate change
- Supporting businesses and residents to take climate action, including our popular Home Energy Saver programme, and the soon to be developed Wellington Climate Lab
- Insights, analysis and developing new initiatives to meet our targets
- Converting the Council’s vehicle fleet to electric cars
- Putting in public electric vehicle chargers at Council locations