Gold Coast City is leading by example in the battle against climate change, with the adoption of a ‘carbon neutral by 2020’ target for its day to day operations. Council formally adopted the target in December.
Gold Coast Mayor, Councillor Ron Clarke, said addressing Council’s own greenhouse emissions was in line with a whole of
City Climate Change Strategy, which will be completed this year. He said the carbon neutral by 2020 target for Council operations would be achieved through a range of initiatives including energy savings and carbon offsets.
“We will build on existing work by Council, including water efficiency and energy management, landfill gas and greenwaste conversion to energy, the Hinze Dam Mini Hydro electricity plant, and planning scheme provisions requiring new development to address climate change,” Mayor Clarke said. “Responding effectively to climate change now requires a major effort on the part of both governments and communities and we have to show the way. We must lead by example.”
In achieving the target, Council will:
- convert all seven its public swimming pools to solar heating
- replace all 487 Council barbecues with new, energy efficient technology
- convert amenities blocks and cabins at its seven tourist
parks from electric and gas water heaters to the latest gas
boosted solar technology - require its 363 petrol fuelled vehicle fleet to use E10
(ethanol) fuel as soon as supplies can be secured - convert the air conditioning at its Evandale administration
buildings to run on alternatively sourced energy efficient
cooling - ensure new Council owned buildings achieve a performance
of 40 per cent better than the Australian Greenhouse
Building five star rating - purchase offsets so that greenhouse gas emissions
generated by Council’s work travel make no net
contribution to global warming - continue to identify and establish potential sites in the City
for carbon sinks (sequestration and revegetation) - review purchasing arrangements to ensure suppliers are
greenhouse friendly - develop and implement a program for employees to reduce
greenhouse emissions at work and at home - complete an adaptation risk analysis for Council assets
and services by the end of 2008.
“These measures will progressively deliver energy savings valued at close to $500,000 a year,” Mayor Clarke said.
He said the work would begin immediately and would help Council meet its current greenhouse reduction target of 20 per cent per capita reduction by 2012.
“This 20 per cent target was set in 2001 as part of Council’s commitment to the Cities for Climate Change program and was an admirable goal at the time, but the urgency for action has since accelerated,” Mayor Clarke said.
