Mayor issues emissions challenge

Whakatāne Mayor Victor Luca says it is time for the district council to step up and show leadership around reducing emissions.

At a meeting last month, Whakatāne District Council’s energy, environment and resilience committee, which he chairs, discussed a scoping report the council had commissioned to investigate the potential for producing solar energy on council properties.

Emissions

“New Zealand accounts for about 0.05 per cent of global emissions, which is bugger all,” says Victor.

“Some will take the view that shows we should do nothing. But there’s also the argument that if a country like ours, that is relatively prosperous, cannot do the right thing, and reduce its emissions, then why on earth would China – which is now the biggest emitter on the planet – ever try and do anything? Or India for that matter, or the United States?

“As community leaders it is also incumbent on us to show leadership, and that includes reducing our own emissions. So this [report] can contribute to that as well.

He says localised energy production will also provide the community with greater energy resilience in times of crisis.

We’re not going to have enough power in this country.

“If everybody wants their lights to go on and has got used to living with power, you might want to give some consideration to increasing generation capacity.”

Solar energy

However, there’s “a lot of water to go under the bridge” before the council can make any decisions on solar energy options.

“ ere is a lot to weigh up in terms of models and how exactly you structure these things.” they’re not there for a haircut. ey’re here to make money.”

He says a lot of other territorial authorities around the country are also getting into the solar energy game.

“New Plymouth [council] is about to build a solar farm, Christchurch has a massive solar farm going in by their airport. I think it’s time for us to step up.”

“We’ve just seen how, when you’ve got a non-distributed system with centralised generation, you knock out one part of it and you’ve taken out the lot.”

Power

Victor says New Zealand is “almost completely dependent on hydro generation”, which is not going to see any increases in capacity in the near future.

“Our energy requirements are going to increase by at least 40 per cent by 2040 and probably double or triple by 2050.