In four years, the Cities Power Partnership (CPP) has become Australia’s largest network of local councils leading the way to a thriving, zero emissions future. With over 165 councils on board, we have seen tangible action and huge emissions reductions taking place all across the country.
Every year, we roll out a Reporting and Feedback Survey to our members to gain insights and help inform the future of the program, as well as receive an update on their Cities Power Partnership pledges. This report summarises the results from the 138 councils who completed this year’s survey.
We hope it provides in-depth information on how councils are leveraging the benefits of the program to accelerate climate action.
Included in this report is:
- An overview of the CPP network.
- A summary of the pledges the CPP network has committed to.
- A summary of different climate policies most relevant to local government.
Key findings:
- Councils have committed to over 700 Cities Power Partnership pledges to reduce emissions locally.
- Councils said the most important factor in driving local government climate action is having access to relevant information and expertise.
- The most common barrier for councils is a lack of funds. This was also the most common barrier encountered last year.
- The majority of the pledge initiatives (64%) councils have committed to are targeting community-wide emissions compared to corporate emissions (36%).
- 72% of councils reported that they want to utilise their membership to scale up their emission reduction initiatives. That’s an 8% increase compared to 2019’s snapshot report.
- The areas of action councils are most interested in engaging with CPP are net zero communities, electric vehicles and climate communications and messaging. Climate risk is another key interest of councils.
- The biggest benefit councils said they have experienced from participating in CPP is more opportunities to collaborate and almost half of all councils said they are interested in joining a working group.
- 47% of councils have an electric vehicle in their fleet. An increase of 6% compared to last year’s report.
- Of the 25% of councils who said they have a corporate net zero emissions target, 74% of those targets commit them to achieving it by 2030.
- 39% of CPP pledges focus on renewable energy.
- Only 18% of councils feel they are prepared to respond to the impacts of climate change.
