This past week the Government issued new guidance to establish linkage between NZ’s official climate change goals, and local and regional planning.
The bottom line: it is now a a legal requirement for local governments to consider the Government’s National Adaptation Plan and Emissions Reduction Plan when preparing or changing regional policy statements, regional plans, and district plans under the Resource Management Act. And further, local government can now also consider greenhouse gas emissions when they make consent decisions.
Previously, the RMA actually restricted local government from considering the effects that greenhouse gas discharges have on climate change.
The change in legal mandate aside, the 25-page guidance document from the Ministry for the Environment is more suggestive than directive. It includes sections on all major sectors – transport, agriculture, forestry, waste management, energy and industry – indicating in each case the kinds of policies and actions local and regional councils could undertake to support achievement of national climate goals.
You can download the guidance document here.
Timely guidance, because …
Earlier this month, the Regional Council hosted a well-attended public assembly on climate change, featuring a trio of outside speakers, including the chief executive of NZ’s Climate Change Commission, iwi leader and environmentalist Mike Smith ((Naâpuhi. Naâti Kahu), and sustainable food advocate Steve Smith.
I was most impressed with what local winemaker Steve Smith had to say about the benefits he is already seeing in his vineyards from adopting regenerative practices. Steve was recently named to Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers Hall of Fame, so with his local and national stature behind them, hopefully these practices will be more widely adopted by our region’s growers.
Given the array of notables in attendance, eager for leadership, missing unfortunately from the assembly’s agenda was a presentation with any detail on what HBRC itself is up to and planning regarding regional climate change response. Many in the audience, especially the business leaders, are well beyond the general ‘cheerleading’ they were given on the day.
HBRC does have stuff to talk about, here’s a page on the HBRC website listing actions the council has underway to mitigate or adapt to climate change.
They just seem to be shy about exerting the regional leadership role our other councils have handed them.
The HBRC and all 5 local councils received their carbon footprint reports. The HBRC published their report.
https://www.hbrc.govt.nz/assets/Document-Library/Reports/HBRC-CommunityCarbonFootprint-2022-HawkesBayRegion-220927-Final.pdf
The HDC will not publish their report before they found possible actions to reduce their carbon emission. This will not be before middle of next year. I agree with the UN’s statement on the world climate adaption process “Too little, Too slow ,Climate adaption failure puts the world [ Inc. Hastings] at risk”!
The report for the HBRC is dealing with the huge number of components which are relevant in the discussion about global warming. Unfortunately, there are a few issues. The results are delivered in single amounts ( tCO2e) e.g. “In the 2020/21 reporting year (1st July 2020 to 30th June 2021), total gross emissions in Hawke’s Bay were 4,345,997 tCO2e. On the other hand the authors of the report quoting MfE regarding the uncertainty of used data.
Unfortunately this “level of uncertainties” can’t be seen in the report ( as +/- range of absolute figures and +/- percentages ) .There is only one sentence on page 11”….an estimate of gross emissions uncertainty was +/- 9%, whereas a net emissions uncertainty estimate was +/- 12%. These levels of uncertainty should be considered when interpreting the results of this community carbon footprint (MfE, 2020)”
I see some problems how to interpret the results and %-breakdown. The report compares the change in Hawke’s Bay Emissions Footprint between 2018/19 and 2020/21 and found a reduction of 3%. On the other hand, there is a +/- 9% uncertainty of gross emissions.
From my point of view the report shows only c how many components are contributing to the carbon emission and the significance of the agricultural sector followed by the transport sector.
I hope that the report for the HDC will be more helpful.
Hi Tom, I think HBRC’s leadership role in climate response is gathering steam.
HBRC is currently coordinating development of a regional emissions reduction plan, for delivery mid 2023, which should give high-level guidance on how our region can meet it’s contribution to national targets (and beyond?).
HBRC will also chair a new regional Climate Action Joint Committee that was proposed by Mayors/Chair in October, intended to ensure responses are better coordinated and that climate work has high-level mandate. A detailed Terms of Reference is currently being put together for this & the group is also intended to be supported by a Technical Advisory Group to ensure it is well-informed. I look forward to my role as Deputy Chair of the new Joint Committee and am working with Chair (& HBRC Chair) Hinewai Ormsby and HBRC staff to shape things up.
Cheers, Xan (Xan Harding, Councillor)