City of Yarra
Is a Power Partner
Yarra has long been at the forefront of climate action in Australia, and we are very keen to use the support this program provides to accelerate our action, as well as share our learnings with others.
Council has chosen the following pledges
Develop supportive planning laws to encourage residents and industry to adopt renewable energy
Facilitate large energy users collectively tendering and purchasing renewable energy at a low cost.
Support the local community to develop capacity and skills to tackle climate change.
Lobby state and federal government to address barriers to the take up of renewable energy, energy efficiency and/or sustainable transport.
Support cycling through provision of adequate cycle lanes, bike parking and end-of-ride facilities.
City of Yarra
Yarra has declared a Climate Emergency and is committed to urgent action. We are exploring ways we can further accelerate climate action under this lens, as an organisation and across our community.
We are starting from a platform of significant action and community engagement already. Some of our actions to date include:
- Yarra is powered by 100% Renewable Electricity, directly responsible for the creation of a new wind farm, under the Melbourne Renewable Energy Partnership
- Yarra continues to operate as a certified Carbon Neutral Organisation, initially being the second Australian Council to take this step
- Yarra has reduced our gross greenhouse gas emissions as an organisation by over 40% (excluding GreenPower and offsets). Yarra continues to innovate in energy efficiency, with a policy to invest in any action with a less than ten year payback. This has for example led to Yarra leading significant activity for the sector such as bulk-streetlight changeover and Energy Performance Contracts.
- Yarra established and is funding the external Yarra Energy Foundation, with the sole purpose to accelerate municipal greenhouse gas emissions reduction
- Yarra was Australia’s first certified One Planet Council, and is a member of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.
Whilst the above actions have been effective and important, we know we are not where we want to be. Our Climate Emergency Plan will help guide our way forwards, but we also hope that through the Cities Power Partnership we will learn from and work collaboratively with the other councils doing incredible work in this space. The power for local government to deliver an effective climate action is so strong because we are closely interlinked with our communities, and we are much stronger together.