Climate Change and Energy Plan
Science has demonstrated that our climate is already experiencing changes, and these changes will continue to increase in intensity, severity and impact.
The City of Kwinana recognises its responsibility to help mitigate against climate change, and to adapt to the changes happening both now and in the future.
The City adopted its Climate Change Plan 2021-2026 in March 2021. The Plan sets the following overarching mitigation and adaptation goals:
- Reduce carbon dioxide equivalent emissions generated by the City’s operations by 5% per capita below 2019/20 levels by 2024/25
- Identify and ensure that the increasing impacts of climate change are considered and addressed through the City’s strategic framework and operations
- Support the community to better understand, prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change
A full list of actions can be found in the Climate Change Plan 2021-2026.
The City’s current Climate Change Plan (2021-2026) and its preceeding plan (2015-2020) drove the implementation of a number of achievements, including:
- A 64.2% reduction in annual corporate greenhouse gas emissions between 2015/16 and 2021/22
- The installation of a further 193kW of solar voltaic systems on eight City-owned facilities. There is currently a total of 227kW capacity of solar across ten facilities.
- The planting of around 120,300 local endemic seedlings as part of the City’s revegetation programs between 2016 and 2022. The City was recognised as a local government leader for having increased its green cover by 6% while experiencing the highest level of population growth in its climate category. The City is now developing an Urban Forest Strategy to support the retention and further expansion of local green cover.
- The annual delivery of a seven-week sustainable living course to residents
Climate change is contributing towards a gradual warming and drying of Kwinana’s local climate. Energy use associated with activities such as cooling of indoor spaces and pumping water for irrigation is also likely to increase.
The City has developed an Energy Plan 2023-2026 that addresses the need to further improve our corporate energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Within the Energy Plan, the City has further updated its greenhouse emissions reduction targets:
- Target 1 – Reduce 2020/21 corporate emissions levels by 80% by 2030
- Target 2 – Reduce 2020/21 corporate emissions levels to net-zero by 2035
The City runs workshops, activities and courses on a variety of sustainability, environmental conservation and waste topics throughout the year.
If you would like to be placed on a mailing list to receive notification of these events please contact the City's Environment and Waste team via email.