The millions spent by DCC on reducing CO2 emissions under their Zero Carbon 2030 plans have been a complete waste of public money in my long experience.
The claim by the DCC Zero Carbon team that Dunedin City CO2 emissions have dropped by 13% from 2019 [conveniently chosen pre-lockdown baseline] to 2025 is questionable since, for instance, this team count farm livestock emissions but don’t count pasture/bush sequestration.
But even if you accept the 13% CO2 emissions reduction claim, the massive lock-downs of transportation and industry during the Covid years entirely accounts for the reduction.
None of the DCC millions spent pushing cycleways, buses, and restricting car parking and speeds, has had any provable effect on CO2 emissions.
Dunedin City area CO2 emissions actually went up 5% in 2025 post Covid as admitted by the Zero Carbon spokesperson [DCC own emissions went up 1.6% in the latest update], despite increasing EV numbers and a zero population increase. [Dunedin population declined by 100 people last year.]
I have called for the DCC zero carbon team to be disbanded for several reasons:
1 – they cost Dunedin ratepayers near $1 million per year in staff costs.
2 – the Zero Carbon Policies they set out to impose have been instituted across all DCC departments already, so little more to be done there.
3 – Counting Dunedin’s carbon footprint is an expensive fruitless exercise as Dunedin’s carbon footprint is little different to any other similar sized NZ city.
4 – Insisting that DCC contractors count their carbon footprints, and also making our Council Controlled Companies do carbon footprint accounting adds to costs and amounts to unaffordable virtue-signalling.
The DCC and its Council Controlled Companies both have unsustainable BILLION$+ debt each, budgeted to cost $1 million PER WEEK each in interest costs for most years of the coming decade.
Dunedin can not afford to maintain annual million$ job creation schemes like the DCC Zero Carbon team, when core services like roads, drainage, and infrastructure maintenance suffer from underfunding and poor value contracting.
We can also not afford for our 40 odd DCC business units to have their own public relations and/or cultural relations staff.
DCC and DCC Company debt is maxed out and a 4% rates cap increase is mandated by central government.
Our new CEO has a hopeless budgeting and compliance job unless elected representatives quickly reverse their spendthrift ways.
