The City of Melbourne has an ambitious target of zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. We’re on track to achieving this target for our own activities but more needs to be done to reduce total emissions across the community.
The City of Melbourne showed international leadership with its Zero Net Emissions by 2020 strategy, published in 2002. We’ve already achieved many actions of this strategy and in 2008, we launched Zero Net Emissions – Update 2008 to build on and update the original strategy.
The Zero Net Emissions strategy identifies emissions reduction opportunities across various sectors of the economy and community, including commercial, residential, transport, and electricity generation.
Our targets
The City of Melbourne has identified four new strategic focus areas and targets for reducing emissions across the municipality:
- Commercial sector – 25% fewer emissions by 2020 on business-as-usual levels.
- Residential – 20% fewer emissions by 2020.
- Passenger transport (road and rail) – 20% fewer emissions from public transport by 2020, 15% fewer emissions from cars and 100% increase in bicycle use.
- Greening the power supply –18% fewer emissions from traditional energy sources by 2020.
- The balance will be achieved through offsets. This may also be achieved through GreenPower purchases or decarbonising the energy supply.
The balance will be achieved through offsets. This may also be achieved through GreenPower purchases or decarbonising the energy supply.
Reducing emissions
The City of Melbourne has numerous actions underway to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some examples include: