By Angela Dorizas

Australian Lord Mayors have called on the Federal Government to include capital cities in the global Copenhagen agreement.

In the lead up to the global climate summit in Copenhagen, the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors (CCLM) committed to collectively slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 57 megatonnes a year by 2020, which is 41 per cent of the Federal Government’s current target.

CCCLM chair and Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, called on federal leaders and state and territory governments to move beyond talk and take immediate action on climate change.

“We are running out of time and if we aren’t able to address this over the next few years everything else becomes academic and immaterial because we are going to be dealing with catastrophic outcomes of inaction,” Ms Moore said at the CCCLM meeting in Sydney today.

She said national debate on the emissions trading scheme had overshadowed action already taken by local government.

“The carbon trading scheme that has preoccupied the media and the Federal Government is not a magic bullet to address global warming,” Ms Moore said.

“It’s just one of the things that governments around the world are doing. We need to do much more.

“I think the work that we are already doing is an indication of what needs to be done and what needs to be accelerated.”

CCCLM released a seven point plan committing the Lord Mayors to residential and commercial building efficiency retrofits,  local tri-generation and waste to energy technology, street lighting efficiencies, transport improvements, increased residential density and accelerated uptake of renewable energies.

The announcement followed new findings that cities could halve their greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 years through implementing a targeted strategy similar to the City of Sydney’s Sustainable Sydney 2030 plan.

Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle, said his council had focused on retrofitting existing buildings to increase energy efficiency.

“In Melbourne we have a very ambitious program of retrofitting 1200 of our buildings in the central business activities district, so that they are at least four and a half stars,” Mr Doyle said.

“We’ve already made a start on that. Last week, council voted to devote $2.9 million to retrofitting 13 of our buildings.

“We will pursue very aggressively our retrofitting program to make sure that we are making our contribution.”

Mr Doyle said increasing housing density was vital to tackling both climate change and impending population boom.

“If our cities are going to double in size are we actually going to build 200 years of infrastructure for that population increase over the next 40 years? The answer is no, we can’t do that,” he said. 

“We actually have to make better use of what we have, better use of the infrastructure that’s already there, as we get that huge number of people into our cities.

“It’s an ugly word, but great concept: intensification. That is getting greater density along the existing transport corridors of Melbourne.”

Lord Mayor of Darwin, Graeme Sawyer, said state and federal support was critical to CCCLM achieving its goal.

“It’s vitally important that the Federal Government and the other agencies get onboard,” Mr Sawyer said.

“Local government is perfectly placed to deliver on this [plan] and we are already are working on it. We have a community out there who is listening to us.”

His message was echoed by Lord Mayor of Hobart, Rob Valentine.

“It think together as capital cities we can really make an impact and we can show the Federal Government and state governments that we mean business,” Mr Valentine said.

Ms Moore and Mr Doyle will take CCCLM’s campaign to the Climate Summit for Mayors in Copenhagen next month.

Capital city mayors have committed to:

• Residential and commercial building efficiency retrofits: Approximately a 40 per cent reduction in lighting electricity consumption by 2015 through the introduction of more efficient lighting technology; and a 10 per cent reduction in appliance electricity consumption through Minimum Energy Performance Standards by 2020. Both these policies are applied to all buildings within the City boundaries.
• District combined cooling heat and power (CCHP): Use of natural gas to generate electricity and harvest waste heat for the thermal loads in approximately 11 per cent of residential dwellings and 13 per cent of non-residential buildings in urban core areas and six per cent of non-residential dwellings in non-core areas by 2020. 
• Waste to energy technology: Divert 50 per cent of the non-recycled residential and non-residential waste stream from landfill by 2015 to produce methane for electric generation.
• Street lighting efficiencies: Convert 100 per cent of the urban area’s street lighting to high efficiency LED lighting by 2020.
• Transport improvements: Reduce emissions through improving public transport, encouraging the uptake of cycling, improving private vehicle fuel efficiency by approximately 50 per cent, and transforming 26 per cent of the private vehicle fleet to electric vehicles by 2020. 
• Employee Density: Reduce the commercial floor area per employee by 20 per cent by 2020, thereby reducing the energy requirements to accommodate employment growth.
• Renewable energy: Replacing 100 per cent of low density residential, 80 per cent of multi-unit and 30 per cent of commercial building hot water systems with solar hot water. In addition, 25 per cent of the remaining electricity used by residents and businesses in the urban boundaries is generated from renewable energy.