Environment
Sustainability Climate Change and Carbon Neutrality
It's great that the Council as a whole has adopted a positive approach to these fundamental issues of the sustainability of our City and our planet.
Environmental issues are not new to me. For years, from the outset of my life as a City Councillor, and long before it was fashionable, I have advocated changes to support a sustainable environment.
While this has the support of all councillors, it will require strong, committed and determined leadership to keep this priority, along with the associated public transport for the City, to the fore.
My Passion and Commitment
I have long (thirty years) been committed to a sustainable future for Wellington and New Zealand, often ahead of others in my commitment to public transport(City and Regional council from the early eighties), to protecting and enhancing the environment we live in, wanting to promote Wellington as a green City with World heritage status some 15 years ago.
In my early years as a councillor and before I was one, I started and then led a 30 year battle to protect and enhance the rural recreation area of Wellington City-so important to our future well-being as a City. That fight has not finished, and there is some erosion of it-but it is largely still intact. Such a green breathing space (64% of the City's landmass), so close to a capital city is something to be protected with all the wonderful recreation possibilities it provides.
The first speech I gave after I was first elected to Council in 1977, was to seek (unsuccessfully) a bylaw which discouraged air-conditioning in our City buildings and in a City which has both innovative architects and plenty of fresh air.
I have initiated and led major and successful environmental battles in this city-to stop the spraying of 245T, the Moa point campaign, the nuclear weapon free zone declaration, the Outer Town Belt, to protect the Old Coach Road, -to name a few.
In 1979, I travelled with my husband on a joint Local government-central government project through the world-then investigating recycling projects, alternative fuel projects and energy sources, and I reported back to the Council with advocacy for alternative fuel use in the Council fleets and a range of other relevant suggestions.
I was a very early advocate for recycling especially but not only of the massive amounts of building material which went instead into our tips-and then caused the early filling of Horokiwi after a period in Wellington's history of significant demolition of inner City buildings.
In the days when we had responsibility for milk distribution I opposed the conversion from the glass bottle to cardboard and now plastic.
PERSONAL-The personal is political.
On a personal level, I have driven a 600 cc car since 1993, and have always had small cars. My late husband rode a motorbike for environmental reasons, and I have one son who refuses to drive a car, and only bikes or buses.
I lived as sustainable a life as I could in the rural area of Wellington city for most of my adult life-planting thousands of native and exotic trees, growing our own food, digging in, composting and recycling our waste, conserving water which we collected ourselves on the roof and from our stream.
We tried to impart the values of environmental sustainability and a love for the environment into our children.
Today, I live next to my work, I hardly ever use my car, my home is 95% of the time solar heated, I have no air conditioning-my windows open, and over the last ten years have travelled little by plane overseas. My carbon footprint is so small it does not register on Al Gore's site.
My Current Commitment
Today, I am a strong advocate for our Council biodiversity policy and implementation plan, just passed, and an active participant in the climate change working party.
There is much to be done. I continue to raise important issues-and to stress that we need to address climate change as an individual, a Council and a community responsibility.
I have repeatedly and so far unsuccessfully raised such issues as the need to conserve water, to use grey water (since the mid eighties..); to collect our own water, to promote alternative energy sources (wind, tidal) but at the same to guard the environment and our significant landscapes; to try to ensure that developers comply with building sustainable houses and apartments and communities- and to change our suburban subdivision code of practice accordingly.
In the climate change working party just established by Council, I have stressed the need for the collection of baseline data to understand our carbon emissions and improvements that we might make; "green buildings but without compromising the environment in other ways through inappropriate "incentivising" of developers); fleet managements, insulation of our housing stock; incentives for solar panels, and solar street lighting; tree planting; public transport, safe cycling and walking priority; marine education; infrastructure development to cope with unforeseen climate events; urban containment; education of our communities-to name some priorities.
The Stern report and Al Gore have given the world a wake up call. Even the most conservative can see the sense and urgent need to make some mitigation effort for economic gain.
I have successfully asked that in our Council Annual Reports that we ensure that there is something akin to triple bottom line reporting-and clear annual reporting back on our measurable progress.
We also need to understand for future planning the impact of less air travel on our economy which relies heavily on tourism.
Finally of course I support Wellington being a Green Capital. However, I believe it will take the committed leadership that I offer, to make it so.
I am very wary of slogans including the use of "carbon neutrality" for "branding" purposes alone.