New greenhouse gas emission tracker shows the way we’re going

People in Ōtautahi-Christchurch district can now get a sense of how we are tracking with our greenhouse gas emissions thanks to a new tool created by Christchurch City Council.

The Council’s Greenhouse Gas Emission Tracker allows people to see how the district is tracking across different emission sources, as well as displaying general transport trends. The tracker displays transportation modes, including fossil fuelled vehicles, cycling, bus patronage, and battery electric vehicle numbers.

It also shows stationary energy use from electricity, diesel and petrol. This includes emissions from the use of gas, coal and geothermal energy to generate electricity. It also includes estimated greenhouse gas emissions from plant use such as diesel and petrol use in generators and from diesel boilers.

Data is fed-in from different emission sources and the tracker displays the monthly trends for users.  

The Council has set an ambitious district-wide target to halve Christchurch’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (from our financial year 2016/17 baseline) and achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

“Transport is estimated to account for about 54 per cent of our district’s total greenhouse gas emissions, with 36 per cent of our total emissions coming from on-road petrol and diesel use. Therefore reducing emissions from on-road transportation is one of the key targets for the district,’’ says Council Resource Efficiency Manager Kevin Crutchley.

Mr Crutchley says the tracker was developed as a tool for people to get a better sense of the Christchurch district’s key sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Meeting our 2030 greenhouse gas emission reduction target is essential for our district to make a fair contribution to global emission reduction. It’s important people have an understanding of where our emissions are coming from, so we can all consider the changes we can be making to reduce them,” Mr Crutchley says.

Find out more about what we’re doing to reduce emissions and how you can help.