Page 3131 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 22 August 2017
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This budget covers a multitude of policies, plans and projects, all of which will make Canberra a better place and go a long way towards improving the ambitious commitments to tackling climate change that will make Canberra a sustainable, modern city, as secured in the parliamentary agreement between the Greens and the Labor Party.
The ACT is leading the nation in climate change mitigation. Work is already progressing and we are tracking well to reach our target of 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2020. In addition we are also progressing our blueprint to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, at the latest. This budget will allow us to continue progressing this work.
I would like to emphasise a few of the projects in my portfolio that are helping our city to grow and to sustain itself, both economically and environmentally. The ACT budget is investing $845,000 over three years to support the government’s commitment to achieve net zero emissions in the ACT by 2050, at the latest. This includes $322,000 in the 2017-18 financial year.
This initiative involves undertaking detailed modelling and analysis to identify the opportunities for greenhouse gas emission reductions in the territory. This work will underpin the development of detailed strategies and actions across all sectors of the ACT economy, as we work towards this ambitious goal.
The development of the territory’s upcoming climate change strategy will ensure that key sectors—namely, transport, commercial energy in buildings and waste—have detailed action plans in place which are supported by cost benefit analysis and economic modelling. These actions are to be developed through strong participatory democracy by best practice engagement with the community.
The opportunity to become a leading carbon neutral city will not be missed. On that point, there are two particular elements that I would like to stress. One is that we are using the phrase “by 2050 at the latest”. The ACT’s existing policy has been to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. One of the things I want to understand from this process is whether we can achieve that sooner. That is an important discussion that needs to take place, and I would like to think that, with improving technology, we could be more ambitious regarding that time frame. Certainly, an important part of this consultation is to understand what the time frame needs to be.
The second point I would particularly stress in this regard is the importance of community participation in this process. It will be vital that, as we seek to move through to our zero net emissions position, the community understands why we are doing that and how we are doing it, and has a sense of ownership of it, so that they have been involved in the discussion. One of the things I am striving to achieve is to have a strong mechanism for people to contribute to this process.
It is easy to reflect that this can be very complex, and it is, in some regards—the modelling around climate change transition and the transition to zero net emissions.
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