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Emissions data reveals a tale of two councils

Cherie Sivignon

Landfills were the largest source ‘‘by a significant margin’’ of the Tasman District Council’s net greenhouse gas emissions in 2020-21.

Unverified data shows that the council’s emissions totalled 20,776 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents for the year, not including those associated with the construction of the Waimea Community Dam.

Emissions from the dam’s construction accounted for another 7278 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2020-21, making up 26% of the council’s gross emissions for that year, according to the data.

After landfills, the council’s other large emission sources were wastewater treatment plants, supplier transport fuels, and its 50% share of Port Nelson.

A report for the council’s strategy and policy committee meeting on Thursday says that once an external auditor verifies the data, it will serve as a baseline for future reporting.

Staff will ‘‘identify and prioritise’’ activities to reduce emissions from council operations, incorporating them into the revised Tasman Climate Action Plan.

The report also contains information on the Nelson City Council’s emissions.

For 2020-21, the city council had total greenhouse gas emissions of 16,200 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents – a 33% reduction from its base year in 2017-18.

‘‘The highest reduction in emissions was from landfills and the wastewater treatment plant,’’ the report says.

After the meeting, Nelson deputy mayor Judene Edgar said reduced emissions from landfills would continue.

The Nelson Tasman Regional Landfill Business Unit, which manages regional landfills on behalf of the Tasman and Nelson councils, has installed a flare at the mothballed Eves Valley landfill to burn methane. It has been estimated that the flare will prevent the equivalent of 13,750 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents from being discharged into the atmosphere each year.

‘‘That’s the equivalent to reducing car travel by 81 million kilometres a year,’’ said Edgar, who is the chairperson of the regional landfill business unit.

During the Tasman council meeting, committee chairperson Councillor Kit Maling noted that landfills were the council’s biggest emitter.

‘‘Our biggest contributor of landfill is construction and the waste from that,’’ Maling said.

‘‘The other one is when we have a climate event . . . the waste that goes when we have a significant climate event is just amazing.’’

In response to a question from Councillor Chris Hill, senior community and reserves policy adviser Anna Gerraty said New Zealand households were some of the worst emitters per capita globally.

The top 10% of households with the highest emissions contributed 34% to 45% of all global emissions, Gerraty said. ‘‘We’re in that top 10% of households globally.’’

She said she did not have the details of the sources of those emissions, but much of them came from the agricultural sector.

‘‘I guess it’s just our overall lifestyle ... the amount of fossil fuels we burn, travel we take,’’ she said. ‘‘We’re isolated in the world . . . all the exports we send overseas, all that’s going to add up.’’

Maling said New Zealand produced a lot more food than it needed for its own population. ‘‘We don’t just feed New Zealand, we feed people across the world, and that has an impact.’’

Councillor Celia Butler said it was important to see the connections between all council strategies such as transport. With New Zealand’s borders reopening and the anticipated return of international visitors, transport was important.

‘‘Because we don’t have good public or commercial bus services, people tend to buy cars and vans, and they drive around in highemitting vans, and so this feeds into the public transport strategy,’’ Butler said.

‘‘I think that if we can improve our commercial bus services, then I think that tourists will maybe take them, use them instead of thinking they’ve got to drive themselves everywhere.’’

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2022-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281595244155883

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