COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, January 14, 2019
QUESTION NO. 13
QUESTION: Councillor C. O'Connor
To ask the Chief Exectuive to confirm that he continues to monitor the wide spread concerns in respect of the challenge of Climate Change; will he outline his further proposals to deal with the matter and will he make a statement.
REPLY:
The four Dublin Local Authorities have developed Draft Climate Action Plans on the initiative of the councils' respective Environment Strategic Policy Committees. A series of workshops and seminars have taken place in 2017/18 involving the 4 Dublin Local Authority Climate Change working group nominees, Codema and the members of the 4 Dublin Local Authority Environment SPCs. The SDCC Draft Climate Change Action Plan 2019 - 2024 also involved stakeholders from across all departments within the council, key actions were developed collaboratively by departments and subsequently included in the plan as target actions.
An inter-departmental Climate Action Steering Committee has been established and working with the Climate Action unit and the Climate Action Regional Office will deliver the implementation, progress monitoring and updating of the actions contained within the plan. This plan has recently been presented to members at the Environment Public Realm and Climate Change SPC in November and to the four Area Committees in December.
The Draft Climate Change Action Plan 2019 - 2024 requires a Strategic Environment Assessment and Appropriate Assessment, public consultation on the plan will begin on Monday, February 11th, running for six weeks and ending on Monday, March 25th. The Mayor will launch the public consultation process for the plan in County Hall on Tuesday, February 19th. There will be public information sessions held during February and March.
Working with Dublin’s Energy Agency, Codema and the Dublin Metropolitan Climate Action Regional Office (CARO), South Dublin County Council will progress the Plan through the public consultation, approval and implementation phases.
The Plan looks at both Adaptation and Mitigation Actions and the South Dublin Draft Plan has a total of 115 Actions over 5 Action Areas.
The 5 Areas of Action are:
- Energy and Buildings,
- Transport,
- Flood Resilience,
- Nature Based Solutions
- Resource Management.
The Four Main Targets of the Plan are:
- 33% improvement in Energy Efficiency by 2020, SDCC are well on the way to achieving this target.
- 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, South Dublin County Council is a signatory to the Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, thereby committing to this target.
- Making Dublin a climate resilient region by reducing the impacts of future climate change related events.
- Actively engage and inform our citizens on climate change.
Some of the Key Actions South Dublin are currently pursuing include:
- The Heatnet project, a district heating project for the Tallaght Area, which will reduce carbon emissions by using waste heat. https://www.sdcc.ie/en/news/sdcc-secures-funding-for-innovative-tallaght-district-heating-system.html
- 5 New Electric Vehicles – the first step in the decarbonisation of the South Dublin County Council fleet. https://www.sdcc.ie/en/news/power-surge-for-south-dublin-county-council.html
- LED upgrades of the public lighting stock, currently 35% of the stock has been upgraded. The installation of LED lighting will continue in 2019 and beyond, with a target to replace 4000 by 2020.
- Lighting upgrades in the Council owned buildings to LED. County Hall has 2,600 which will see a 44% reduction in energy consumption when replaced.
- Continuing the SDCC programme of tree planting. A 30% increase in the planting target for 2019, the number of trees due to be planted next year to 1,300.
- Delivering flood alleviation Schemes on our main rivers, namely the Camac, Whitechurch and Poddle Flood Alleviation Schemes. Working with the OPW and Dublin City Council. http://www.poddlefas.ie/