South Australia has adopted a leading role in the sustainable cities agenda, targeting net zero emissions by 2050.
A case study: City of Adelaide and South Australia
After a tweet wager between entrepreneur and CEO of Telsa Elon Musk and Software Company co-CEO of Atlassian Mike Cannon-Brookes, and some behind-the-wings action from Adelaide premier Jay Weatherill earlier this year, the City of Adelaide was thrown into the sustainable cities spotlight. Tesla's deal to provide the entire energy storage component of a 100MW/129MWh wind farm (within 1 year or free of charge) came after severe storms in late 2016 caused a widespread power outages across almost the entire South Australian state.
The Twitter-bet put Adelaide on the map. But well before coming under this spotlight, South Australia was adopting a leading role in the sustainable cities agenda; targeting net zero emissions by 2050 and prioritising investment in low carbon industries and renewable electricity generation. The state aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, achieve $10 billion in low carbon investment by 2025 and improve energy efficiency of government buildings by 30 per cent by 2020.
In 2015, the State Government and Adelaide City Council committed to a joint aspiration for Adelaide to be the world's first carbon neutral city. The Carbon Neutral Adelaide program involves a range of targets and commitments, including introducing behaviour change programs to institutions and businesses, attracting sustainable investments, catalysing community-led action and scaling-up initiatives to reduce cost, support research and develop low carbon technologies.
Do you believe in smart cities? Don't miss this year's Climathon
The Climathon is an annual, global 24-hour hackathon for early ideation on climate solutions at the city level. It aims to find new solutions to local climate change problems, encompassing mitigation and local adaptation, accelerating the best local ideas into city level solutions and spreading the winning ideas to other cities globally. The Climathon runs in collaboration with Climate-KIC Europe and involves teams of innovators in over 100 cities across 44 countries. This October 27th 2017, cities will work across time zones to meet specific challenges, engaging on social media to exchange with other teams around the world and cross-pollinate ideas.
Climate- KIC Australia this year expands the Climathon to Adelaide, Bassendean, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney with each city responding to city-specific climate issues such as resilience to extreme heat and heatwaves (Melbourne), encouraging uptake of electric vehicles (Canberra) and local renewable energy production (Bassendean).
If you're interested in seeing sustainable solutions come to life in 24 hours, register to attend a Climathon in your city here.
