What we are doing

Greater Wellington is committed to climate action

The Climate Committee

We have established a new Council committee for this triennium, the Climate Committee, to put climate action front and centre of Greater Wellington’s governance and activities. The purpose of the Committee is to oversee and inform the development and review of Council’s strategies, policies, plans, programmes and initiatives from a climate change perspective.

Our current work

We’re already taking climate action through much of our current work outlined in our 2021-31 Long Term Plan, for example:

• Flood protection
• Investing in electric buses (decarbonising public transport)
• Protecting wetlands
• Restoring the biodiversity of our regional parks to build their resilience to climate impacts such as coastal
  erosion, fire and storms
• Partnering with the city and district councils around the Region by providing technical support such as
  climate science and natural hazards expertise.

The role of the committee is to scale up this work in order to benefit the climate.

Transitioning to a low-emissions economy

COVID-19 and the economic recovery provides GW an unprecedented opportunity to partner with others to support an effective and fair, climate safe response that smooths the transition to a low emissions, resilient region.

Electric vehicles

We are ramping up plans to increase the number of electric buses in the public transport fleet to 108 vehicles by December 2023. Planning for a fully decarbonised bus fleet by 2030 is underway.

We are supporting electric vehicle use in the region. 

Greenhouse gases

In conjunction with the district councils of the region, we have just published a new regional greenhouse gas inventory for the period 2001-2019. This is key to understanding what the key sources of emissions are for the region and therefore where we need to place our efforts to transition towards a low carbon economy.

Find out more about greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon footprint

We are in the process of updating our carbon footprint which will help us manage our own emissions and get our own house in order. We’re working on ways to accelerate our transition to a low carbon organisation by funding projects that reduce our corporate carbon footprint. Our use of carbon credits will ultimately reduce the rates impact on our community.

Greater Wellington is committed to climate action (PDF 64 KB)

Greater Wellington Group carbon emissions -  (PDF 248 KB) sources and reduction opportunities

Preparing Coastal Communities for Climate Change

We are also working with local councils through the Wellington Region Climate Change Working Group (WRCCWG).

We've developed a report called "Preparing Coastal Communities for Climate Change". This helps us assess coastal vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change.

Assessing coastal vulnerability to climate change, sea level rise and natural hazards (PDF 22 MB)