Carbon Neutral Adelaide

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (14:37): Supplementary: given the minister referred in his answer to the collaboration between city council and the state government, Lord Mayor Haese has indicated that the only way carbon neutrality could be achieved by 2025 was by purchasing offsets, to which the minister has referred, and he said that the council would be asking the state government to help pay for the offsets, which he conceded would cost millions each year. Can the minister indicate what level of funding the government has committed this financial year to the city council purchasing offsets, and for each of the forward estimate years—that is, for each of the next three years—together with the city council, to purchase offsets to help achieve this policy goal?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:38): The Hon. Mr Lucas is really putting the cart before the horse. We need to do the work that is actually going to achieve the biggest bang for buck in the first instance, and that will be addressing the emissions that we see as part of the city profile that come from transport and fixed assets—the energy consumption in those buildings. Together, that adds up to roughly about 85 or even up to a high 80 percentile mark in terms of the emissions. So, logically, that is where you would put your greatest effort: to prioritise direct emissions reduction activities over offsets. That's what we're doing.

When required, as I said, we would preferentially seek offsets of a local nature and from projects in South Australia, but we are working very closely with the city council to achieve those goals well before anyone else does. However, first of all you prioritise your game plan to actually achieve the best outcome you can in the shortest amount of time. You prioritise your direct emissions, your transport emissions, your standing energy emissions that come from buildings, and then you see what you are required to do to bridge the gap. There is no point in trying to bridge the gap when you don't know what the gap is.