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To help towards the climate crisis we have we have declared a climate emergency and set a goal for the region to be carbon neutral by 2050. We've been getting our own house in order and changing how we operate to reduce our carbon footprint.
We have declared a climate emergency and set a goal for the region to be carbon neutral by 2050.
We’re already undertaking a wide range of actions through our current work.
Here are our active work programmes:
What we are doing to reduce emissions
What we are doing to protect communities from a changing climate – resilience
What we are doing to drawdown carbon
We know that the actions we take over the next ten years will be critical to ensure our climate resilience as a region.
Here are some examples of what we have planned:
Our region is at a critical turning point.
Every year, thousands of tonnes of productive soil dislodge, and fall into our waterways destabilising the land, devastating estuarine habitat.
If we want to halt this, protect the land, and make it more resilient to climate change and an increase in volatile weather events, we need to plant trees in the right place.
We are looking at upscaling planting of trees on highly erodible land at pace.
We know planting trees is the single most effective short-term action to restore erosion prone areas, slow climate change and improve water quality.
Research into Hawke’s Bay residents attitudes towards climate change shows that 55% were prepared to pay more to minimuse climate change impacts, and the most supported initiative was tree planting to sequester carbon, and reduce erosion.
We consulted successfully in 2021 to create a Climate Action Ambassador, who began in this role in February 2022. Pippa is working to bring councils, mana whenua, youth and other key organisations together to plan and take sustained and collective action.
Wai, or freshwater, is a precious and finite resource, and is under increasing pressure from a range of sources. We are aiming to make sure Hawke’s Bay has long-term, climate resilient and secure supplies of freshwater for all.
We are urgently working on a comprehensive regional water security programme for Hawke’s Bay.
We are working with other councils and tangata whenua to manage and support community resilience against coastal hazard risks for the coast from Clifton to Tangoio.
Hundreds of people’s homes are located along the coast, and there is business, industry, roads, bridges, services, the Napier Port, and the Hawke’s Bay airport.
We’ve developed the 2120 Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Strategy and are working on management options to build protection and community resiliency along the coast.
We know we need to walk the talk and be the leading organisation in getting to zero carbon, to bring our contractors, other councils and partners along with us on the journey in Hawke’s Bay.
We’re reviewing our greenhouse gas footprint, with the end goal of being carbon neutral by 2025, and are working towards implementing an accredited management system known as Toitū.
We have a comprehensive sustainability program across the Council.
Despite a significant increase in the number of staff over this period, you can see from this graph we have managed to reduce our carbon emissions quite substantially over the last 6 years.
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