Published on 27 June 2022

Have your say on Onkaparinga’s Climate Change Response Plan

City of Onkaparinga wants your feedback on its draft Climate Change Response Plan 2022–27. 

The plan sets out 79 actions, providing clear strategic direction to inform council’s role in helping the city mitigate and adapt to a changing climate. 

City of Onkaparinga Acting Mayor Simon McMahon said the plan builds on the work council has been doing to respond to climate change for two decades. 

“A strong response to climate change is key to maintaining liveability in our city, managing risks, and reducing future costs,” he said. 

“Not only that, our community has also consistently highlighted climate change as an important issue, with 81 per cent of respondents to our Community Survey 2021 agreeing that ‘not addressing climate change would be a risk to our city’. 

“Councils like us are on the frontline of responding to climate change consequences, such as more frequent and extreme weather events, sea level rise and bushfires, and we perform an important role in helping communities to mitigate and respond. 

“I urge everyone to review our draft plan at our Your Say page before Thursday 14 July and provide your feedback on the actions, projects, practices and initiatives we want to undertake over the next five years.” 

Three community drop-in sessions will also be held at

• Woodcroft Library on Wednesday 29 June (10–11.30am)
• Coromandel Community Centre on Wednesday 29 June (2-3.30pm)
• Aldinga Library on Thursday 30 June (4.30–6pm). 

Community feedback on the draft will inform updates to the plan, which will be presented to Council for endorsement in August 2022. 

The plan’s 79 actions—of which 36 are underway, 28 are planned and 15 are new—fall under five goals: Climate Smart Neighbourhoods, Climate Ready Communities, Climate Resilient Natural Areas, Low Carbon Transition and Climate Risk Reduction. 

It follows Council’s recent endorsement of a Towards Zero Corporate Emissions Roadmap, which sets a target of 80 per cent reduction in the organisation’s corporate greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. 

City of Onkaparinga’s work in delivering strong climate action in both a leadership role and via collaboration with other councils and agencies over the past 15 years has included: 

• planting 40,500 trees since 2016 and establishing urban forest targets to plant 100,000 trees in street verges, waterways and parks by 2037 
• powering the equivalent of 4400 homes by generating bio-gas and installing the state’s first solar farm built on a landfill at the jointly owned council landfill at Seaford Heights 
• managing 270+ conservation sites and restoring 71km of creeks and rivers across nine catchments 
• studying the impacts of sea level rise along our 31 km of coastline in a 2020 Coastal Adaptation Study to understand how people, the natural environment and built assets might be impacted. This allows council, state government and residents to plan now for any future changes 
• mapping and monitoring coastal risks including 3D mapping of coastal erosion hot spots. A tidal gauge in the Onkaparinga River is recording storm surge and tidal events 
• reducing operational emissions by 46 per cent since our baseline of 2010–11 and tracking our emissions 1998 
• establishing a Green Buildings Program to undertake energy upgrades on council-owned buildings and Green Hub demonstration sites to inspire household action 
• establishing a Revolving Resources Fund to finance energy upgrades and a Climate Change Response Fund to finance innovative council climate change initiatives. 
• installing 1,000 solar panels (550kW) on council buildings including Woodcroft Community Centre, the Field Operations Centre and Noarlunga Office and building the first bi-directional solar car park shade on a community site in SA at Wakefield House. 
• changing 12,000 street lights to 14W LEDs, which use 40 per cent less electricity to light Onkaparinga streets 
• prioritising recycled materials when building and installing roads, street furniture, edging, bollards and boardwalks with over 7900 tonnes used in 2019–20 
• founding Resilient South, a regional partnership between four councils and state government that’s working to build the resilience of Southern Adelaide.