Future Wellingtonians deserve to inherit a city that works, and that means Council doing its fair share to cut emissions. Today I moved an amendment to keep Council's target of cutting its own emissions by 57% by 2030, rather than lowering it to 42%. It passed at Council's Social, Cultural, and Environment Committee, and with it we've also started work on capturing more methane at the Southern Landfill.
Why was the target up for change?
Cumulative decisions of the new Council moved us further away from meeting our emissions reduction targets. In May, the Council paused kerbside organics collections and the regional processing facility that would have gone with it. During the last annual plan the Council also decided to reduce funding for the climate change team, moving the teams focus from reducing emissions to responding to climate change.
Alongside these decisions the methodology for calculating landfill emissions changed. All of this meant we were off track and as a result were at risk of losing our Local Government Funding Agency Loan discounts, worth about $132,000 a year.
Putting it in perspective
Critics of the Council’s climate change targets often claim that it’s a fraught endeavour that only costs Wellingtonians money. The reality is that because of the way emissions are priced in New Zealand we actually save money if we reduce our emissions.
Take the difference between the recommended target of 42% and my amendment of 57% for example. Reducing our emissions by 57% would mean we would be emitting about 14,700 tonnes of CO2 less in 2030. The direct cost to the Council of those emissions through the ETS is ~$740,000 per year.
How will we get there?
The Southern Landfill produces about 78% of Council's own emissions. Its gas system captured an estimated 56% of the landfill's methane last year, and every extra percentage point we capture cuts about 1,150 tonnes a year.
My amendment secured $100,000 for a business case on capturing more of that methane, and reserved an indicative $3.5 million over two years in later budgets for the upgrades. The business case will tell us how much we can capture, and at what cost, before we commit.
It's also good value. Council pays for its landfill emissions through the Emissions Trading Scheme, and officers estimate those costs at about $20 million over the next ten years. As I said at the meeting:
“When we look at these projects, we often look at the cost of doing them, but not the liability we remove. The cost of not reducing [our] emissions, in today’s value, is $740,000 a year.”
Who supported the amendment?
Amendment: Maintain Council's short-term target as "Reduce Council Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 57% between FY21 and FY30", approve a new medium-term target of a 63% reduction by FY35, and retain the long-term target of net zero by 2050.
For: Mayor Little, Deputy Mayor McNulty, Councillor Abdurahman, Councillor Al-Rubayee, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Compton, Councillor Foon, Pouiwi Hohaia, Pouiwi Kelly, Councillor Matthews, Councillor O'Brien, Councillor Osborne, Councillor Reweti, Councillor Rogers,
Against: Councillor Chung, Councillor O'Connor, Councillor Tiefenbacher
