South Australia climate plan targets carbon world-first for Adelaide

A plan to make Adelaide the world’s first carbon neutral city has been put in place, with an agreement signed by the city’s Lord Mayor Martin Haese and South Australian premier Jay Weatherill.

The deal was inked on Sunday at the release of the South Australian government’s Climate Change Strategy 2015-2050, ahead of a week of international climate talks in Paris.

“We are committed to making the City of Adelaide the world’s first carbon neutral city, and I am delighted to have finalised this agreement formally today with the Lord Mayor,” Weatherill said.

“Our partnership aims to reap the economic opportunities likely to flow from moving first, and shows the government and council share the vision of a vibrant and sustainable capital city, leading renewable energy uptake and clean technology investment.

“We want to encourage investors to our forward-thinking state, and in turn create jobs and opportunities for South Australians.”

The government’s 60-page Climate Change Strategy is centred around its ambitious target of net zero emissions by 2050, announced last week.

The state’s renewable energy target remains unchanged, however, at 50 per cent by 2025. And considering South Australia has already managed to generate 41 per cent of its grid electricity from renewables, the allowance of 10 years boost that by another 9 per cent seems fairly modest – and even suggests a possible slow-down.

While there is no formal commitment made to a renewable energy target in 2050, the report notes that “indications are that (South Australia’s) electricity supplies could be almost completely decarbonised by 2050, with the state generating enough renewable energy to meet demand and potentially exporting to interstate markets.”

The report also notes that – and this is illustrated in the graph below – together with fuel switching, electrification could represent around 26 per cent of the total abatement required to achieve net zero emissions.

Screen Shot 2015-11-30 at 11.51.35 am

It is interesting to note that nuclear is not mentioned at all in the body of the report, confirming earlier suggestions that it will not be factored into the future energy mix of South Australia, as it was not a cost effective option for the state.

Other targets committed to in the new report were $10 billion in low-carbon investment by 2025 – in 2014/15 the state invested $6.6 billion in renewables; and a 30 per cent improvement in the energy efficiency of government buildings by 2020 (a 24% improvement was achieved in 2014-15).


Comments

4 responses to “South Australia climate plan targets carbon world-first for Adelaide”

  1. Beat Odermatt Avatar
    Beat Odermatt

    Great idea, but the Government could take some action to prevent anti-environment levies as proposed by SA Power Networks and other narrow minded electricity companies. It is also important that such goals are made and agreed on by all major parties and are not used just for political grandstanding.

  2. EnGee Avatar
    EnGee

    I believe the whole thing is a funny. How can a city be carbon neutral when :
    1. The streets are paved with bitumen.
    2. High rise apartments are built everywhere with enormous energy consumption compared to original city homes.. Not to mention the concrete used to build them.
    3. The tourist and hotel economy relies on jet aircraft landing at Adelaide airport, each one burning up to 20,000 kg of aviation fuel to get there.
    4. Every person in Adelaide breaths out 37mg of carbon dioxide per breath ?

    1. EnGee Avatar
      EnGee

      Every 747 takes 180,000 kg of aviation fuel, and consumes 10,000 kg per hour. Roll on tourism to this carbon neutral town of Adelaide !!

  3. Drake Anderson Avatar
    Drake Anderson

    So when will the interconnect power cables from Victoria”s “coal power” be cut so as to be fully self sufficient ?
    Carbon free when every ones house is full of plastic??

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