Crs Alexa Forbes and Alan Somerville tried to delay adoption of the council’s climate strategy 2024 at yesterday’s council meeting, voting instead to rework the document in the new year.
"Look, we won’t ever get our documents perfect," Cr Somerville said.
"And trying to make them perfect shouldn’t be used as a way of delaying things.
"That’s certainly not my intention here, but I think another look at this would enable us to make this strategy much more useful.
"There are still some ideas to work out — as we’ve heard."
Cr Forbes said she was worried it was "not a coherent strategy".
There were a range of issues in the "very mild" strategy that worried her.
The only mitigation actions it detailed affected areas that made up a "tiny" proportion of the region’s emissions.
"I’m disappointed," she said.
Cr Michael Laws said what the "Green councillors" were really saying was "you don’t like the current climate strategy because it doesn’t do enough to satisfy your particular political or ideological lens".
"Now, what the council did, and what the council staff did, is they brought back a timid document — that is true — but it’s a timid document based upon our statutory responsibilities and an acceptance and awareness of the political environment in which this council exists.
"Climate change policy doesn’t come from this council.
"It’s not the body that is responsible for adapting this particular country to whatever climate change mitigation strategies there might be.
"They come from central government."
Chairwoman Cr Gretchen Robertson also voted against delaying the adoption of the strategy.
"I think that we should be getting on with it, to be honest.
"We could wait again.
"We could wait for more and more.
"We could wait until we’ve got our emissions inventory.
"We could come up with all of the specific details that we’re going to do — that’d be awesome.
"But actually, why don’t we just put a strategy in place now that’s dynamic, that we adapt over time, because any strategy shouldn’t just sit there forever."
Council chief executive Richard Saunders said part of the goal of the strategy was to give the council "some credibility" when it went out to the community.
"Without some of these fundamental building blocks, like understanding our own [emissions] inventory, and taking action with what we can, it’s a little bit rich for us to be going out more broadly and trying to influence what other people are doing."
The staff report presented yesterday said the purpose of the climate strategy was to advance the council’s "strategic direction vision" over the next 10 years.
