Climate Change Response Grants - Round 3 - 2023/24

Karen Finzel7:24

Thank you very so the item before us today is item 5.2, climate change response. Grants round three 23 24 we we have Carbon Reduction Officer Annie Nolan at the table, the Environmental Services Department. Annie, can you please give us a brief overview of the matter?

Sure. As part of our climate change response plan in the budget we nominate $50,000 for community initiatives to assist to help us reduce our emissions across the Noosa Shire as well as improve resilience of the community to the impacts of climate change. So as part of the environment grants we actually put out these grants and they were open to community groups to apply for funding to suggest projects to actually do in fact that reduce emissions or improve resilience across the board. We received six applications and they're in attachment one to the report. I don't know if you want me to go through all of them? The no? First there were six. The first one was for a solar installation at the Genealogical Heritage Centre. Sorry, I'll just backtrack a bit. Beg your pardon. We had $50,000 in this year's budget, but because we actually had carryover from last year of 17,000. Sorry. I forgot the exact number. Were we able to actually make that up to 67,000 for the total.

Very much so so in our climate change response plan as well as our Environment Strategy we actually have two goals the first is for Noosa Council to be net zero emissions by 2026 and the other one is for the whole of the community to be net zero emissions by 2026 which is very ambitious but this was very much a community-led request and initiative that we need to be recognising the science of change and really moving towards net zero emissions by 2026 as the community overall and so what these batteries will do actually soak up the solar that's actually being generated during the day and actually capture that into a battery so it will in fact be able to be used at night and therefore it's increasing the percentage of renewable energy that's actually in the grid overall so it will actually help to reduce our emissions overall.

Brian Stockwell11:49

I think it's really interesting that this lot of climate change grants just because of the diversity of community groups that have know, from geological to the indigenous corporation, the not-for-profit that's looking at a wild food farm. You know, from places like the permaculture group that's building a community facility on Council property through to others which are trying to educate those within the tourism industry or the body corporate industry about the financial benefits and the commercial reality that solar room strata presents. So and then sort of the last one there and Zero Emissions Noosa Inc is about that whole transition that's occurring of trying to get everyone to understand that the more you switch to electricity to electric appliances and electric throughout the house heating your lawnmower the quicker would make that target and so yeah as we mentioned that the 2026 target zero emissions for Council that's a non-negotiable we'll get there but for the community it is a big ask but it's probably one that is achievable in terms of electricity without too much additional technology required or investment it's about people changing their consumer behaviour it's very easy for example to if you if you're renting to buy green power and charge your cars motor mowers heaters so I think it's a good array and the fact is that there's significant value for money for the near just under $60,000 investment