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Climate change is no longer something that will happen in the future. It is here and now. The impacts of a changing climate are already being felt across southern Adelaide. Even if we achieve a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, some changes to our climate are already locked in. This means that we also need to prepare and respond to the impacts of a changing climate.
The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021) Assessment Report makes it clear that:
- We are on track for between 1.2°C and 1.9°C of warming by 2040
- We must limit warming to 1.5°C to avoid the worst impacts of climate change
- There is still time to take action, but the window is closing fast
- We need to prepare for the climate change that is now locked in
In southern Adelaide, the impacts of climate change include:
- More frequent, long-running, and intense heat waves.
- Less rain in total but more intense storms and flooding.
- Sea level rise, more coastal erosion, and more extreme storm surges.
- Changes to growing seasons.
- More frequent and extreme fire danger days.
Council Climate Action
We recognise that the world is in a state of climate emergency and that all levels of Government have a responsibility to act. On behalf of our coastal community, we are immediately responsible for responding to forecast climate change implications.
One of Council's responses to climate change is a commitment to become a carbon-neutral organisation by 2030.
Some of the actions that we have taken include:
- Installed solar panels on major council buildings.
- Installed energy-efficient lighting in council buildings.
- Changed most of our streetlights to energy-efficient LEDs.
- Purchased an electric vehicle.
- Installing water-sensitive urban design features such as TreeNet inlets, which redirect stormwater to our street trees, instead of running out into the sea.
- Increasing our tree canopy.
Responding to and reducing the effects of a changing climate requires a whole-of-government approach. To read the Council's response, please see the documents below.
Carbon Neutral Plan
Being 'carbon neutral' means greenhouse gas removals balance our organisational greenhouse gas emissions.
To achieve this, we use the principles of best practice emissions reduction, which means first attempting to reduce the emissions we can control and then purchasing offsets to become carbon neutral.
Our Carbon Neutral Plan prioritises reducing emissions in the following key areas:
- Purchasing 100% renewable energy.
- Transitioning our vehicle fleet to zero emissions vehicles by 2030.
- Completing the transition of our streetlights to energy-efficient LEDs (currently 75% complete).
- Certifying all our events as carbon neutral from 2024.
- Continuing to make our buildings more energy-efficient.
We will also work to improve our procurement system to reduce emissions from our suppliers.
We also track our emissions as part of working towards carbon neutrality to ensure emissions reductions are happening.
Urban Heat
An urban heat island is a hotspot in an area significantly warmer than its surrounding areas. They occur because the natural land cover has been replaced with dense concentrations of pavement, buildings, roads, etc., which absorb and trap heat. This trapped heat radiates into the surrounding area, including inside living spaces. These hotspots are particularly noticeable if the area does not cool to comfortable levels at night, which is important for good health. The impacts of these hotspots include increased energy costs for air conditioning, which also means increased greenhouse gas emissions (unless powered by renewable energy), increased air pollution, and increased heat-related illnesses and mortality.
Climate change is increasing average temperatures by 1°C to 3°C in large cities, compared with average rural temperatures. Temperatures above 28°C contribute to poor health.
Therefore, urban cooling strategies must be implemented to make our city a welcoming and healthy place to live and visit. These include using more vegetation and green spaces, including street trees, shade structures, and heat-reflective building materials.
In 2018, we collaborated with the State Government and 15 other metropolitan councils on a major project to map Adelaide's metropolitan urban heat and tree canopy. The results are publicly available on a State Government Urban Heat and Tree Mapping Viewer (see link below).
Community Climate Action
There are many actions that individuals, households and businesses can take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Here is some information about a few.
Upgrade to energy-efficient electrical appliances and sign up for renewable electricity for your home to create a healthier future. Council offers a few rebates to help with this transition to a healthier, cheaper form of energy. Check out our Green Living rebates page to find out more.
To find out if State or Commonwealth Government incentives are applicable, visit the Commonwealth 'Rebates and assistance' webpage listed below.
If you want to ensure you get credible renewable energy, use the Greenpeace Green Electricity Guide. Simply choose SA as your state. The guide is available at the link below.
The South Australian Government currently offers a subsidy for private individuals to purchase electric cars. This is a 3-year registration exemption on eligible new battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
The RAA is rolling out a major program to install 140 charging sites to be installed across the state by the end of 2024.
Find out more about the subsidies in the link below.
Just by changing the colour of your roof, you could reduce your energy bills, help keep your neighbourhood cool, and reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Our hot summers combined with increasing average temperatures from climate change mean that cool, light-coloured, heat-reflective roofs are estimated to reflect up to 70% more of the summer heat than a dark roof, which only reflects about 20%. A heat-reflective roof can help the roof stay cooler than conventional materials by more than 28°C during a heatwave.
A cool roof can be installed on any building, whether retrofitting or building a new home or commercial building. Some cool roof elements are built into the roofing materials prior to installation, and some are applied after installation. Both methods are effective at creating cool roofs.
The following roof types are suitable for heat-reflective paint technology:
- corrugated iron / Colourbond©/ Zincalume© (but don’t install Zincalume without a coating otherwise, it gets very hot)
- concrete
- bitumen
- tiles
- slate
Specialist paints used for cool roofs have the technology to maximise heat reflection. Not all cool roof products are light-coloured, and many use darker pigments with high heat reflectivity. This is ideal if you apply a cool roof coating to a heritage building, where a light-coloured roof would be inappropriate. Talk to a paint or roof specialist.
If you are interested in purchasing solar panels, there is currently an incentive called the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme to help with up-front costs. The scheme has a range of eligibility requirements but may be used for solar panels, wind turbines, solar water heaters, and air-source heat pumps. Find out more at the link below.
The award-winning Resilient South climate partnership is a formal collaboration between the cities of Holdfast Bay, Marion, Mitcham, Onkaparinga, and the State Government. The partnership focuses on what we can do across the southern Adelaide region to ensure that our businesses, communities, and environments can tackle the challenges of climate change.
Changes in our climate, such as higher temperatures, declining rainfall, and rising sea levels, require active risk management. The Resilient South project also seeks to harness the opportunities presented by these changes so that the region continues to thrive.
Resilient South has a Regional Climate Action Plan that was developed over two years with input from almost one thousand people across southern Adelaide. The plan's vision is for a southern Adelaide that is climate resilient, with healthy and diverse natural environments, low emissions and connected communities. Find out more about Resilient South on their website.
We support our community in taking action on climate-friendly and sustainable living in several ways.
Green Living Workshops
Our Green Living workshops are very popular throughout the year. They provide information on a range of ways to live more lightly on the earth and be climate-friendly in your home. Look out for these in our What's On calendar.
Green Living Subsidies
We provide subsidies for our residents on various climate-friendly and sustainable living items. Find more information on our Green Living rebates page.
Greening Our Community Grants
Each year we provide grants to non-profit groups and schools for a wide range of climate and sustainability projects.
Find out more on our Community Grants page.
Weekly FOGO
We are the first council in South Australia to provide a weekly green bin (FOGO) pick-up service across the entire council area. This weekly service has many environmental benefits, including reducing community greenhouse gas emissions.
Holdfast Habitat Heroes
Our nature volunteers work weekly to help our native plants and natural ecosystems thrive and adapt to climate change. The volunteers undertake various work, including planting, weeding, and water. If you are interested in joining our volunteering program, click here