The stirring giant?: Local government and greenhouse mitigation in Victoria

Local government in Australia is acknowledged as having the potential to influence over fifty per cent of Australia's greenhouse emissions, through transport, infrastructure development, waste management, land use change and the community's energy use. However few studies have sought to examine the effectiveness of this sector's mitigation efforts and activities. This thesis examines the Victorian local government sector's shared and individual efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and considers the effectiveness of that sector's policies and activities. It uses survey and interview data, as well as an extensive literature review to explore the potential for mitigation measures by Local government in Victoria, and assess current practice against this potential. This thesis finds that the greatest potential capabilities for mitigation by Local government in Victoria exist in three domains for action - planning control, technological implementation, and behavioural education. Those potential mitigation capabilities have been realised in practice through acting on their own corporate emissions, implemented large-scale mitigation technologies in partnership, and responding to charges imposed upon them by State and Commonwealth government policies and regulations. In some cases advocacy has been necessary from the bottom up internally, in other sectors as with advocacy for the consideration of environmental sustainability at the planning stage rather than the building stage, it has culminated in a united effort across many councils to strategically influence the State government. Individual Victorian councils have benefited from the snowball effects of mitigation activity at this level of government, including emissions target setting, programs such as the bulk buy networks, streetlighting changeovers, environmentally sustainable design, energy foundations and recycling, and high participation in alliances and partnerships. Thus Victorian Local government mitigation action is far from "a stiff smile to be painted on the wreckage of grander visions..." (Victor, House & Joy 2005, p. 1820). However the research finds that this mitigation action is uneven across Victorian Local government. There are a few cases of reflexive innovation and action to implement mitigation policy to full capability, but in many areas councils display a general ambivalence toward action despite solutions and multiple benefits being within their reach. Mitigation efforts in the majority of Victorian councils remain focused inward - seeking organisational and economic benefits for councils themselves - rather than outwardly oriented to their communities. Victorian Local government is not resourcing innovative integrated approaches across the full range of its potential capabilities. Its mitigation endeavours are also poorly aligned with the deeper social dimensions of consumption, emissions and climate change, with weak enthusiasm for innovative long-term householder emissions mitigation projects leading to some 60% of councils relying entirely on their corporate web sites to communicate the value and means of greenhouse mitigation. Local government in Victoria is yet to fully engage with the digital environment and the use of contemporary, participatory tactics to reach local communities similar to those succeeding internationally. Given the capability of Victorian Local government to shape and implement greenhouse mitigation policy, there remain significant opportunities for this sector to enhance emissions mitigation by combining online digital assets and its authority and resources to assist local communities to access and build climate change mitigation knowledge and action