Following the Government’s declaration of a climate-change emergency, Southland regional councillors will this week discuss whether its own approach is out of step, as one councillor asserted.
Environment Southland councillor Robert Guyton has submitted a question for this Wednesday’s full council meeting.
In it, he asks fellow councillors if they should upgrade their approach to "match that of many other councils around New Zealand and that of central government".
Last year in July they voted against declaring a climate emergency.
Instead, they voted to commit to applying best practice and best science to their responsibilities and develop an action plan.
In his question, Mr Guyton said council now found itself out of step with, and behind, the Government’s position on climate change.
At the time of the vote, it was he who put the motion, seconded by Cr Lyndal Ludlow, to declare a climate emergency.
Council chambers were packed with members of the public, with those who could not fit looking in from outside.
Council chairman Nicol Horrell had said declaring a climate emergency would be a "symbolic but empty gesture" and, "we can't afford to devalue the word emergency".
Others were concerned the word would cause panic.
Mr Guyton replied that of all councils that have so far declared an emergency there were no reports of that happening. The Dunedin City and Queenstown-Lakes District councils declared climate emergencies the month before.
As she addressed the motion in Parliament earlier this month, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it was a declaration based on science.
She said it was responsibility we all must feel, especially with New Zealanders being in the Pacific.
After noting a recent trip to Tokelau where new sea-walls were failing, she said the Pacific Island Forum had called climate change their single greatest threat.
"This declaration is an acknowledgement of the next generation. An acknowledgement of the burden they will carry if we do not get this right, if we do not take action now."
