Parramatta Goes 100% Green

05 Jun 2008

Parramatta City Council has put its money where its mouth is and in its Draft Management Plan for 2008-9 committed to invest in 100 per cent Green Power, the Lord Mayor, Cr Paul Barber said during his World Environment Day address.

“The facts are now in,” the Lord Mayor said. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its Fourth Report, is now at least 90 per cent certain that global warming is occurring. They’re now almost as certain that the reason for global warming is greenhouse gas emissions from human activity,” he said.

“When I became Lord Mayor, I made a commitment to make sure Council itself and local businesses, big and small, had the knowledge and the resources to take on these environmental challenges,”  the Lord Mayor said.

“I’m proud to tell you that my Council has just made the necessary investment to enable us to use 100 per cent Green Power. We’re investing up to half a million dollars in drawing our power needs from renewable sources, whether its wind farms, solar or geodynamic.”

Council last year began implementing its comprehensive Environment Action Plan and dedicated itself to a wide ranging and city-wide response to the growing threats of global warming.

“Of the three tiers of government, it is the local governments of Australia which are setting the example in good environmental policy and practice.  Parramatta City Council is no different,” the Lord Mayor said.

Council’s five year Climate Action Plan specifies additional climate action targets and defines twenty-nine specific community actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Parramatta’s local government area. By 2050, the major goal is to make emissions 60 per cent less than they are today.   

“We’ve got to minimise the waste we generate and the power and energy we consume. And Australians should be working on the local front – on what they can achieve in our own backyard. Let’s not forget that our country has the highest rate of carbon emissions per capita in the world,” he said.