Experts and councillors question lack of costs in major climate change strategy
A major climate change strategy which proposes fundamental changes for Christchurch in the next 25 years lacks detail on costs and could have gone further, according to experts who helped develop it. Several councillors have already raised concerns about the lack of costings for the plan. The Christchurch City Council's draft climate change strategy , which was released last month, outlines how the city will ultimately reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2045 five years ahead of the Governments nationwide target. The strategy mainly contains information on what the council hopes to achieve long-term, instead of distinct actions with exact budgets and deliverable time frames. READ MORE: * Christchurch council seeks clarity on cost of multimillion-dollar climate change strategy * No Maori ward for Christchurch City Council * Flooding work approved after councillor digs unauthorised trench * By-product gas from wastewater could help Hamilton slash carbon emissions by 2030 The council is currently asking for public feedback , but councillor Yani Johanson thought people would not be able to give informed feedback without costs being included in the strategy. Telling them the costs of the projects were proposing ... I cant understand why they wouldn't include financial implications on those, he said. Johanson was one of several councillors who voiced concern about the lack of costs in the strategy last month. Council staff had promised to provide more costs at the appropriate time. He acknowledged some parts of the strategy would be difficult to quantify, but said some proposed projects were specific. Specific projects included creating a series of ponds and wetlands in Bexley, implementing a waste management and minimisation plan, and planting 500 fruit trees in the city. There were no cost estimates included for these proposals. Cr Sara Templeton, who chairs the council committee responsible for climate change, said the strategy was only setting a direction to travel in. This strategy is very high level, it needs a lot more detail before we would know what a budget might be, she said. The councils strategy was developed with the help of an expert group, which met for two workshops. But not all members were entirely satisfied with the final document. Matthew Hughes, a member of the group and a senior lecturer at Canterbury University, thought there needed to be further detail on how the strategy would be implemented, and wanted the council to ensure it was open and transparent. It would be good to see the areas that the council can actually influence more explicitly articulated, he said. Hughes said councillors were justified in wanting more detail on costs as they rightly had concern about the potential burden on ratepayers. Hughes commended other parts of the strategy, including its emphasis on Te Tiriti, long-term thinking and equity. Another member of the expert group, Simon Watts, said he was not desperately unhappy with the strategy, but would have liked to have seen stronger goals. Watts is the observatory director of the Brighton Observatory of Environment & Economics. He wanted the council to work faster towards net-zero emissions as an organisation. The councils current target is 2030. I think we should be a lot more ambitious, but I suspect the reality is its going to take that long to make the changes that have to be done. The council had set the whole citys carbon-zero target at 2045, which was five years ahead of both Wellington and Aucklands city councils. Emma Davis, head of strategic policy at the city council, said detailed action planning with the community, including Ngai Tahu, business, and stakeholders, would happen after the strategys public consultation period, which closes next month. The councils proposed 10-year budget , a different document to the strategy, shows some spending proposals for climate-related projects over the next decade, such as $235.8 million for cycling projects, $90.7m for public transport, and $13.1m on tree planting.