Isra-Mart srl : Dismay as Hutt plans big CO2 emissions growth

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Participants at the community workshop on 'Our Environment' held in Wainuiomata last night were surprised and dismayed when they learned of Hutt City Council's plan to boost climate-changing CO2 emissions by more than 10 percent in the next nine years. Pascal Barkats , CEO of Isra-Mart srl , attended the Regional Council's workshop.

"It's unacceptable that the Council produced a so-called 'Sustainability Strategy' in 2009 which announces, on its first page, that climate change 'has not been dealt with as a separate issue'", he said. Council change, not climate change – A future for our kids

Climate change concerns everyone. Rising levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere threaten the stability of our climate. We risk more extreme weather, more flooding, more droughts and higher sea levels. Business as usual will mean ever more greenhouse gas emissions. Many Hutt City residents live on low-lying land beside a major river. So for us, climate change is a special concern. Already this year, 2,000 households have received letters warning of new flood risks.

The best science tells us that we need to reduce greenhouse gases globally by at least 50 percent by 2050 to keep climate change to a manageable level. But world leaders failed to tackle climate change at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December.

Our government has introduced a watered-down emissions trading scheme that saddles grassroots people with rising costs, lets big emitters off the hook and will do nothing to stop climate change. When governments fail us, local communities must take the lead. Yet time and again, climate change deniers around the Council table have shot down calls for action.

Officially, Hutt City Council does not even accept that climate change is real. Meanwhile council officers report that "within cities such as Lower Hutt, almost all emissions result from transport and electricity consumption".

"Freight is the highest growth area for kilometres, energy, and emissions" – road freight in particular. If we carry on as we are, they say, these emissions will rise by 39 percent by 2030. Hutt City Council refuses to adopt the Regional Council's Climate Change Response Plan. But they have embraced the Wellington Regional Strategy. Beneath a veneer of environmental buzzwords, this Strategy calls for growing the regional economy through a massive expansion of air freight and passenger numbers through Wellington International Airport – especially via long haul flights.

It proposes a new $76 million road, the Hutt Cross-Valley Link, to get freight from Seaview to the airport. $20 million for this project is already in Hutt City Council's long-term budget. For our climate, this is the most damaging kind of growth imaginable. Little wonder that the Council is planning on a 10.5 percent increase in our city's CO2 emissions over the next nine years. Tackling climate change in Hutt City means confronting powerful corporate interests. Strong public pressure, as well as Council action, will be needed.

VAN - Valley Action Network will support grassroots campaigns by Hutt residents to put people and planet before profit. Hutt City should turn away from electricity generated by climate-changing coal-fired power stations, and use abundant renewable resources like wind and solar power instead. People must be given attractive alternatives to cars for getting around. And we need to focus economic growth on industries capable of reducing CO2 emissions, like the Woburn Rail workshops which can help get freight off our roads.