Seatbelt fastened, I eagerly tuned into the livestream this week of the Climate Action Joint Committee.
What a disappointment. No danger of whiplash here. Barely a quorum. Discussion not worthy of a local high school geography class. And certainly no ‘action’. Not even the suggestion of action, unless you count trying to muster a quorum.
They managed, finally, to adopt terms of reference, which provide seats to folks who then don’t show up.
I suggest a re-naming: Climate Slumber Joint Committee. The Committee meets three times a year. Two slumber parties have been held; the next will be 4 December. The pace is not exactly electrifying. At least with more than three months’ notice, we might hope for a substantive, meaty agenda – we’re promised a Regional Emissions Reduction Plan sometime in this triennium – and enough attending members to address it.
I had expected this week’s Climate meeting to address GHG mitigation recommendations recently put before to the Regional Transport Committee (RTC), which is what the RTC agenda paper explicitly referenced and expected.
Transportation accounts for 20% of HB’s carbon emissions, second only to our agriculture-related emissions. So, measures and incentives to reduce transport emissions deserve our priority attention. Like 4-laning the Expressway?!
Here’s a table from the Regional Transport Committee agenda outlining some transport options.
However, despite what the RTC signaled, there was no sign of these recommendations at the Climate Slumber Joint Committee meeting.
Although the UN General Secretary says we’ve now reached ‘global boiling’, there’s no sign our local elected leaders are feeling the heat.
So, this criticism is not a knock on the relevant staffers at our councils, who seem well-informed, capable and motivated.
It is directed squarely at our local elected politicians, who are providing no real leadership, just the mandatory rhetorical lip service, content to set aside addressing climate change for another rainy day … and we’ve just seen where that will get us.
Great article, Tom Belford! What will it take to wake people up!? We have just experienced a climate event in our region like no other in our lifetimes and still people continue sleep-walking towards more of the same. No urgency, no passion, no political courage! The fact that the next meeting of this committee is not until December speaks volumes!
Hi Tom, I share your disappointment, as well as respect for the capacity of the staffers. It is definitely for leaders to lead.
Seems you didn’t get much response to your polling of committee reps during the week, below for the record is what I responded to you with. I think it provides some useful insights into the committee & cause for slightly more optimism than your article suggests.
But what we really need is for the region to tell parties left & right that we don’t want more lanes on the expressway, give us the $$ for regional adaptation & mitigation instead….
1. Overall, are you satisfied with the work HB’s councils are undertaking via the Joint Climate Action Committee? What result(s) would you point to?
Partially satisfied. Tangible results are formation of the committee itself with all 5 Councils on board (not an insignificant achievement, given the vastly different emissions profiles of the Heretaunga Plains, Wairoa & CHB) and adoption of a Terms of Reference. The TOR has a commitment at it’s heart to develop a regional Emissions Reduction Plan, which will deliver regional targets for emissions reductions to which we can be held accountable. Also there is some small progress towards understanding that our current goal of regional climate neutrality by 2050 is insufficiently ambitious (in part, due to our strong net afforestation contribution) & the appropriateness of adopting a regional split-gas approach & gross emission reduction targets.
Intangible results are some small progress in bridging gaps between rural and urban communities of interest, along with the creation of a platform to support a region-wide dialogue on the balance between regional rural, urban and afforestation climate contributions (ie. succeed regionally, where He Waka Eke Noa has failed nationally).
2.Amongst HB’s elected officials, has the urgency around addressing climate change been diminished by the priority being given to recovery matters?
I don’t believe so. On the contrary, I believe the urgency has increased due to the widespread acceptance of a partial role of climate warming in the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle and other national/global weather-related events. In the short term, the cyclone has affected collective capacity but I believe this is just a very short term issue, more than outweighed by the overall increased sense of urgency.
What has also definitely changed is an increasing call for more focus on adaptation & especially the community resilience aspects of adaptation. That is no bad thing but cannot be a substitute for urgent action towards mitigation, ie. real reductions in our gross GHG outputs.
3. Are you satisfied with the progress HBRC itself is making with respect to mitigating its own ‘institutional’ emissions impact?
No. This has received a setback due to much higher diesel used in recovery, especially for silt & debris. It won’t get back on track until 2024.
Mean time, unashamed of sounding negative how many mega millions of gallons of diesel is gobled up by the heavy plant at The Port of Napier?? And the tooing an frowing…..
TALK of Electric trucks, forklifts, and what next Tugs an all?
Nothing but pure unadulterated Bovine Manure!
Unfair comments David. You should read Napier Port’s sustainability report.
When the next cyclone removes the bridges again and the flood plain is innundated with greater loss of life, then we just might have to pull the issue out of the too hard basket and actually do something, otherwise “as Mankind presides, Nature decides. Ho, hum,
I will Tom. But if it’s anything like their supposed noise an air pollution mitigation, I won’t believe it untill it actually happens???
Where is light passenger rail connecting the region on their agenda? Twice I’ve taken time off work to speak to my submission to the Regional Transport Committees LTP, as have many others, and nada. Our underutilised rail infrastructure is for more than just logs, and would take out the daily road slalom in an attempt to avoid the road caverns created by those 43 tonne trucks okayed by Key and his cronies. Their is no resilience. When is local government going to stop being such a disappointment?