The Age has just released a report showing the bargain that Cities for Climate Protection was compared to other highly fancied projects. Martin and I had to respond...
Dear Editor
Your front page of 15 Feb notes ‘Climate cash up in smoke’. There was certainly no smoke and no mirrors when it came to the highly successful and reputed Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program. CCP was an initiative of the internationally renowned ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability in the 1990s and was a worldwide program to secure the support and actions of cities and local governments.
In Australia the program started in 1997 and over a decade attracted the participation of 240 metropolitan and rural councils across the width and breadth of Australia covering over 85% of the population. CCP councils generated GHG reductions, financial savings and investments in low carbon programs and projects. The direct investment by the Federal Government in the CCP program was around $12m and not the $203m reported in The Age.
The difference can only be assumed to cover the Federal bureaucracy, funding of specific programs and projects sought by CCP councils and the cost no doubt of the plethora of reviews and evaluations of the program, each one indicating value for GHG reductions (18 m tonnes) and value for money through council investments in staff, programs and major projects.
The last (Wilkins 2008) review saw the demise of the program under the Rudd Labor Government which had became solely focused on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It is ironic to those of us in the Local Government sector that the Howard Government supported such a voluntary and action-based initiative under successive Ministers starting with Robert Hill and concluding with Malcolm Turnbull.
Such have been the twists and turns of successive Federal Governments and their leaders that the CCP approach to building political and community support for addressing the causes of climate change through real and direct action went up in smoke along with the GHG reductions in July 2009!
Yours
Martin Brennan
Wayne Wescott
