This is doomed to failure. Virtue is something we must do for ourselves.
Even if we could arrange for a council to carry out virtuous activities on our behalf the activities chosen have a tendency towards inconsistency, hypocrisy and impossibility.
The Otago Regional Council is a case in point. Recently, it decided it would stop investing our money in companies that profit from fossil fuels. This includes the likes of Contact Energy — 11% of its revenue is oil and gas related.
Cr Alan Somerville said that as an organisation that was primarily concerned with environmental management and resilience, "I would pull every lever we have to take action on climate change" (Crs Malcolm, Kelliher and Laws voted against).
The ORC has very little funds in its portfolio of investments, especially compared with the investment it has in properties and port activities through Port Otago. If it really did want to pull every lever to take action it would need to take many more actions than this.
The income of the ORC is made up of rates, government subsidies, charges for services and fines, with a very small amount from interest and dividends from investments. The rates come from organisations and people who may well be making money from fossil fuels to pay their rates.
The government receives money in taxes from fossil fuel providers and passes it on to the ORC through grants and subsidies. Those who pay fines and charges may well be paying them from ill-gotten fossil fuel sources.
On the expenditure side the largest part of the "business" of the ORC is public transport, using buses which move around using significant fossil fuels with very few passengers in some cases.
And both Port of Otago and the property arm of the entity of Port Otago use fossil fuels to make profits to subsidise ORC ratepayers.
It is surely a bit rich for the councillors to vote to be virtuous in a tiny and insignificant way when it is donkey deep in living off fossil fuel users’ money and using significant fossil fuels itself.
The Dunedin City Council is even more committed to virtue. It began in June 2019 by declaring a climate emergency and committed us to accelerate efforts towards becoming a carbon-neutral city by 2030. (Current councillors Vandervis and Whiley voted against.)
This plan has been developing in the past four years. Strangely, the emergency persists, suggesting a new use of the term emergency or a lack of useful activity to respond to the emergency in response.
The part of the plan which involves the DCC as a council achieving this 2030 goal has many of the same issues as the ORC has, except that it has different commercial companies which are owned by the DCC.
City Forests Ltd keeps cutting down trees and sending them away. Delta runs an infrastructure company using significant fossil fuels. Not to mention the partially DCC-owned airport, which encourages air transport.
And the concrete and increased fossil fuels generated from us all driving endlessly around the George St beautification programme.
The DCC has another more deluded idea contained in its zero-carbon plan. The plan is committed not only to the DCC changing some of its habits but that all of us living in Dunedin city will also fall in behind.
There appear to be no particular costings involved in us all doing what it takes to go along with this plan. It imagines it is supporting local businesses to take positive climate actions without any idea of the reality for the community.
Last week it decided it would judge contractors on whether they had reduced their carbon footprint appropriately, at a meeting most of the councillors drove to using fossil fuels.
What councillors can do around virtue without hypocrisy and trying to control the world is to lead by example. The DCC councillor carpark is heavily utilised on council meeting days.
Instead the council could decree that there will be no car parking available for councillors. They could form a team to challenge others to have a carless month, or a rubbish-free household. They could personally do as some farmers and businesses are doing and get together with other like-minded people to improve their own carbon footprints.
In the case of the ORC, councillors could personally refuse to have a deposit or mortgage with any bank which makes money from taking money from or supporting fossil fuel-using institutions.
If leaving our virtue to personal choice means some staff from various councils’ "departments of virtue" are without a job, the staff involved could contract out to individual councillors who wish for advice on how to have a virtuous life.
For the rest of us we cannot farm out our ethical responsibilities to others. Our own virtue lies in our own hands.
- Hilary Calvert is a former Otago regional councillor, MP and DCC councillor.
