Firstly, aroha mai – our apologies for how long it has taken to get out an update. The council elections and growing momentum for climate action in the Waikato have been keeping us busy, but in a good way.

Hamilton Day of Climate Action

Collective climate action is a force to be reckoned with. On Friday, 29 November, there is a great opportunity to help with gully restoration projects around Hamilton. The Hamilton Day of Climate Action, organised by Student Environment Leaders Waikato, is a range of events (at different times). To check out the projects, register and get your free ticket please, go to waikatoclimateactionday.eventbrite.co.nz. Specific details about the gully project you want to work on will be emailed to you after registration.

Grab some friends and turn some of your thinking into doing. The student environment leaders will love to have you involved.

Take the bus! There will free travel on all Hamilton BUSIT services between 9am and 3pm for this event – just show the bus driver your registration.

WRC sets up a regional Climate Action Committee

Waikato Regional Council last week established the Climate Action Committee, with new councillors Jennifer Nickel (Hamilton) and Denis Tegg (Thames) at the helm as chair and deputy chair. Jennifer is looking forward to creating an inclusive environment for people to contribute to strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing community resilience to the impacts of climate change. More information will follow ahead of the first meeting early next year.

Waikato CAN Summit

We’ve spent some time analysing everyone’s ideas from the 3D modelling workshop at the Waikato CAN (Climate Action Now) Summit on 21 September. Here are some of the key themes:

• We need a political environment that supports communities to make the necessary changes needed to help stabilise the climate and adapt to the impacts of change. This includes having appropriate policies for supporting action, public investment in low carbon transport, and making the regeneration of ecosystems a part of all decision making.
• Economic growth is not seen as the means to an end. Rather, environmental sustainability and community wellbeing should be built into all economic development projects.
• Investing in social capital, such as with good communication and education, are also considered vital enablers of change.
• Finally, there needs to be a renewal of democratic institutions so that they create unity and realise and give effect to shared community and environmental values.

For a full summary of the workshop, see waikatoregion.govt.nz/waikato-climate-action-now.

Next time round

We had lots of people ask to make the Waikato CAN summit an annual event, so we want your ideas and help for what that could look like. Thank you to those who took the time to provide feedback on this year’s event. We really value your feedback and will be using it when planning ahead.

This year’s summit was brought together in the space of a few weeks following a request from the Waikato Mayoral Forum. With more time, we can make it even better. Please drop us an email at climate.action.now@waikatoregion.govt.nz if you have any ideas for a format or what you’d like to see at next year’s summit. Better still, sing out if you would like to volunteer to help bring it all together.

Ngā mihi

The Waikato CAN team