City of Sydney
Environmental action
Energy and climate change
There’s plenty we can do individually and collectively to stay globally competitive and reduce the impacts of climate change on Sydney and the wider world.
Why we’re doing this
Climate change is the most serious environmental challenge that human beings have faced. It is the defining issue of our time.
Globally, the largest contributor to climate change is the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Burning these fuels releases emissions that create a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. This traps increasing levels of solar heat and causes warming. An energy transition to renewable energy is already well underway. To avert the worst consequences of climate change, we need to accelerate this transition.
That’s why we're pursuing ambitious but achievable goals of our own as part of our climate emergency response. Our vision is for a resilient, sustainable Sydney that remains one of the world’s most vibrant and liveable cities for decades to come.
Our environmental strategy 2021-2025 sets these targets for our area:
70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 from 2006 baseline
net zero emissions by 2035
50% of electricity demand met by renewable sources by 2030.
The benefits of achieving these targets are large and wide-ranging and will have a positive impact internationally as well as locally. In our area, we can look to cleaner air, a stronger economy and a healthier population.
Globally, a general move towards a more sustainable way of living can help to avoid the destabilisation of communities, extinction of species and reduce the regularity of catastrophic weather events.
We’ve gathered information about our ongoing emissions reductions initiatives, so you can see what we’re doing. There’s information on how you can take climate action too.