New action plan lists 100 measures Tipperary's council will take to combat climate change

Tipperary County Council has approved its five-year Climate Action Plan that details 100 measures it plans to take to reduce its carbon emissions and help other sectors of the community combat climate change.

The Council’s elected members unanimously gave the thumbs up to its Setting the Scene for Going Green Climate Action Plan for 2024 to 2029 at their February meeting in Nenagh.

Every local authority in the country is required to produce a Climate Action Plan and Tipperary County Council’s blueprint comes into effect in March.

Tipperary County Council Climate Action Coordinator Clare Lee told the council meeting the objective of the plan was to pursue and achieve the transition to a “climate resilient, biodiversity rich, environmentally sustainable and climate neutral economy” in county Tipperary by the end of 2050.

She explained the plan was based on three pillars. The first is the decarbonisation of the council’s operations and the second is outward focused actions across the council’s functions and services to enable communities to decarbonise.

The third is to support the role out of a range of climate change mitigations and biodiversity measures in the Mid-Tipperary Decarbonisation Zone centred around the National Bioeconomy Campus at Lisheen that includes a wide rural hinterland in parts of Thurles and Carrick-on-Suir Municipal Districts.

She outlined that the plan’s preparation began in February last year and the draft plan was published last September. There was an extensive public consultation process with the council receiving 29 submissions. The CEO’s Report on the draft plan presented to councillors at the meeting set out the modifications to the plan arising from the submissions.

Chairman of the Council’s Environment & Climate Action Strategic Policy Committee Cllr Sean Ryan, who proposed the plan’s adoption, said it was an ambitious plan proposing really positive actions beneficial to everyone in the county. Reducing climate change by reducing our carbon footprint was something everyone had to embrace, he added.

Cllr Siobhán Ambrose described Tipperary County Council as the “poster girl and boy” for action on climate change and the energy upgrade of its buildings through the installation of solar panels and better insulation was cited as an example to other local authorities.

She pointed to the way the public have embraced the new Clonmel town bus service as an example of the way Tipperary people are playing their part.

Independent Cllr Andy Moloney, meanwhile, called for councillors to receive updated information on all the funding and incentive schemes for solar panels, home retrofitting and other climate action schemes to councillors for passing on to constituents.

Ms Lee responded that the council will discuss the sharing and communication of this information with the Sustainable Tipperary group and will hopefully be able to come up with a solution.

Sustainable Tipperary is a collaboration of public, private and voluntary organisations working to achieve a low carbon future for this county.

Some of the 100 climate action measures proposed in the plan

1. Achieve a 51% reduction in “non-electrical” transport greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 with measures to move to electric vehicles and vehicles run on alternative fuels.
2.Introduce more energy efficient public lighting and lighting in council buildings
3.Seek to acquire the Council’s electricity supply from renewable sources
4. Continue to “encourage, deepen and maximise” the transfer of public services such as motor tax and events booking to online systems to cut down on customers travelling to and from offices.
5. Continue to support hybrid working for staff to reduce their need to travel to work and provide infrastructure to facilitate remote working
6. Continue to roll out Active Travel programmes and promote active travel, namely walking and cycling.
7. Retrofitting council houses to improve their energy efficiency
8. Council to show leadership by designing and constructing net zero energy homes as part of its building programme
9. Through the Community Climate Action Fund support community groups to decarbonise their building assets and programmes.
10. Encourage biodiversity in communities with groups like Tidy Towns through competitions, training and events.