More help to switch off gas on the way as ACT charts next climate course
Support for apartment buildings to switch off gas will be made permanent in the ACT, the Climate Change Minister has said, as she prepared to outline plans designed to help people make climate-friendly changes in their lives and unlock the transition's economic opportunities.
Suzanne Orr said a major, updated climate strategy would help the government consider the systems and fabric of the capital to make adaptation and resilience changes easier for residents to make.
"We can make planning decisions that make it easy for people to transition or we can make planning decisions that make it harder for people to transition. And it's for us to make sure that we're doing the easier path, not the harder path," Ms Orr told The Canberra Times in an interview.
Ms Orr said ensuring Canberra was prepared for a hotter and more volatile climate needed a partnership between the government and its citizens, and the territory needed to think beyond the target of achieving net-zero emissions.
"Government can't do it without people also taking action. People can't get there without government doing their bit. So looking at that systemic part. And that's the part where it can't be either or, it has to be both. Very clearly in my mind, that's what we're doing," she said.
Ms Orr on Thursday will release the government's updated climate strategy and the first accompanying action plan, a new format for the document the minister said would allow it to be more dynamic and responsive to new technologies and challenges.
"The overarching framework sets out our clear vision, which is not only achieving net zero, which has been our goal for a long time now, but also starting to move towards how we become a resilient city," she said.
Canberra needed to become a "climate positive city" where the government did little harm to the environment and also sought to restore the natural world.
"That's the big shift. So, we don't end our journey at net zero. We actually have an idea of where we're going next," she said.
Ms Orr said the government would shortly announce a pilot program that has provided the owners of apartments and other complex buildings help to move off natural gas would be made permanent.
The program funded site-specific feasibility studies and implementation plans for seven apartment complexes to set how the owners could electrify their buildings.
"That presents unique and case-by-case challenges and it's actually providing the assistance and enabling everyone, not just leaving it up to where it's really complex for people to have to figure it out on their own. That's the work where I see government really being able to step in and help," Ms Orr said.
The new climate strategy reaffirms the government's target to phase out gas by 2045, with some areas of the natural gas network to be considered for decommissioning sooner.
The government wants between 80 and 90 per cent of new light vehicles to be zero-emissions models by 2030, ahead of a ban on internal combustion engine cars set to begin five years later.
The ACT's long-standing net-zero emissions by 2045 target remains in place, and the strategy said a faster shift to electric vehicles, higher use of public transport and faster replacement of high-emission refrigerants would be necessary. The territory missed an interim emissions reduction target last year.
"To track to net zero by 2045, we need a stronger focus on cleaner transport, further electrification and building upgrades, enhancing the contribution of our trees and soil to store carbon and stronger action to avoid and reduce waste. For emissions that can't be avoided, we may need to offset them by supporting high-integrity activities that remove carbon elsewhere," the strategy said.
Ms Orr said the strategy would now focus on ensuring all the government's work had a climate change and adaptation element. The minister pointed to the connection between strategies for transport, planning and nature conservation as being closely linked to the approach to climate change.
"We can continue to have a list of, here's a list of things under the climate change strategy and individual funding items, but that's probably selling us short," she said.
