‘Too little, too late’: Councillor slams climate policy

COUNCIL will exhibit a climate change policy for 28-days.

Lismore City Council's councillors have voted in favour of the climate resilience policy, moving it to a 28-day exhibition period.

LISMORE City Council has moved to reduce the lack of climate change policy within their policy portfolio by voting to exhibit the Climate Resilience Policy.

The strongly supported motion means the draft climate resilience policy will move into a 28-day exhibition period.

A resilience policy favours mitigating and adapting to the circumstances faced as a result of climate change. It will also allow the council to seek funding for matters involving climate change.

It was not all smooth sailing throughout the vote with councillor Adam Guise opting to speaking against the bill.

“This policy I see as too little too late, we are in the throes of climate change, this is just a policy it’s words alone.

“We had actions in our CSP that actually took action towards mitigating the use of fossil fuels, we had renewable energy masterplan which was about making council’s emissions carbon neutral by 2023.

“This to me is a backwards step in terms of climate change resilience.”

Councillor Elly Bird said that the policy represented a good starting point for the council to build from as it looks to give climate change a greater focus in their policies.

“I would like to see a more concrete strategy, but we know that we are constrained and not able to deliver a strategy (like that) just yet,” councillor Elly Bird said.

“This is a beginning point for us to work towards a concrete set of actions that we can implement to address climate change and make ourselves a more resilient community.”

Despite speaking against the motion earlier, Guise voted in favour along with councillors Moorhouse, Marks, Cook, Lloyd, Smith, Bird.