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Gerald Hope will chair the Marlborough District Council climate committee when it finally meets.
Gerald Hope, who chairs a Marlborough District Council climate change committee, says he is sorry it has taken so long to get together.
The committee meets for the first time on January 30, 15 months after it was formed.
Hope said the delay was caused by staff failure to carry out six-monthly reviews of progress towards meeting goals set out in a 2020 Climate Change Action Plan. A first review had just been completed, on time for the meeting.
“It has sat on someone’s desk and not been regularly updated. But I don’t want to point fingers, staff have been so busy.”
When Nadine Taylor was elected Marlborough Mayor in October 2022, she was keen to see more emphasis on climate change and adaptation work in response to weather events and sea level rise.
“I’ll be looking at how I structure council to make sure we achieve some really good outcomes for the province,” she said at the time.
Hope saw the climate change committee’s role as ensuring each council manager understood goals in the Climate Change Action Plan, while keeping a focus on reducing and mitigating emissions and supporting resilience.
Despite delays in the committee meeting, many goals in the plan were being achieved, he said.
A greenhouse gas inventory showed the Blenheim landfill and wastewater treatment near the Wairau Lagoon accounted for 80% of the council’s emissions, Hope said. Good progress had been made, with landfill emissions down 11.4% between 2019 and 2023 and wastewater down 15.4%.
This inventory would be on the climate committee agenda.
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For Nadine Taylor, being elected Marlborough Mayor was a climate moment when she stressed her commitment to the council tackling climate change.
While there was a lot of interest in vehicle emissions, the council fleet contributed only 0.76% of total emissions, said Hope. EVs and hybrids had a place for short hops but 4WDs were needed for long trips and back-country driving.
As environment committee chairperson, Hope was clear on current and future impacts of climate change. He had listened to numerous experts on impacts including sea-level rise, ocean acidification and warming, and increased extreme weather events. These would place habitats at risk and accelerate biodiversity loss on land and in the sea.
“Niwa modelling of 1.5 to 2m sea-level rise would see tides knocking on the door of central Blenheim.”
Increased severity and frequency of heavy rain would increase risks, including from forest industry debris. Wairau River flows would be more variable, with implications for the reliability of water permits.
People were asking what the council was doing, “but the damage is done,” he said. “It is good people have been planting by waterways but this might become more difficult with government funds about to run dry,” Hope said.
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Budyong Hill of Climate Karanga said the group would rather the Council climate committee didn’t meet than pursue a box-ticking exercise.
Marlborough climate action group, Climate Karanga, had been asking why the council’s committee had taken so long to meet. But co-chairperson, Budyong Hill, said he preferred delays to a box-ticking exercise.
In its submission to the Marlborough Environment Plan, the group proposed the appointment of a climate change advisor to support the council and local businesses.
Hope agreed there would be benefits to a dedicated person picking up the climate change portfolio rather than council managers and staff juggling work loads.
Climate Karanga would be given time to speak to the meeting, Hope said.
“We want to harvest their thoughts and comments. All interested people will be welcome.”
