Our climate change response

Climate change is a complex issue, which means we can’t solve it with just one solution. We must reduce our emissions, but it’s equally important that we prepare for the changes that are already locked in.

This is our long-term strategy to address climate change. It sets the vision for Hamilton as a thriving, low-carbon city that responds and adapts to climate change. It outlines the emissions targets we’ve set for our city and Council operations and the three key outcomes we are seeking to achieve: 

1. By acting together, our emissions are reducing.
2. Our neighbourhoods enable low-carbon living.
3. Our city is ready for Hamilton’s climate. 

We’ve taken actions to improve our response to climate change, including:  

• reducing our use of natural gas leading to significant emissions reductions across our operations
• installing solar panels at St Andrews Library
• transitioning our Council fleet to electric vehicles, e-bikes and e-scooters
• investing in our public transport, including support for the new Meteor service 
• procuring a new hazard and climate change risk assessment tool to better inform planning and resilience
• completing flood mapping for 90% of the city to improve preparedness and response.

As of February 2025, staff rated the overall progress toward delivering our strategy outcomes as amber (off-track). While some outcomes are tracking well (green), others are significantly off-track (red). To see the full picture and find out what we’re doing to improve, you can read our monitoring reports from February 2025 and October 2023.

Read the February 2025 Monitoring Report

Read the October 2023 Monitoring Report

Our Climate Statement is Hamilton City Council’s climate change disclosure report. It is the start of our wider, ongoing climate change maturity work which looks at how well we are integrating our climate change response across our organisation.  

Completing climate change disclosure reports drives a better response to the climate change risks and opportunities across the organisation and provides an update on how well we’re prepared for the transition to a low-carbon and climate resilient future.

Read Our Climate Statement 2024/25

Read Our Climate Statement 2023/24

The Climate Change Policy is a commitment to embedding climate change impacts into Council decision-making, projects and business cases. It means that when we start a new piece of work, we’ll assess whether it will increase or decrease our emissions, and whether it could be impacted by our need to adapt to the climate risks ahead.

Read our climate change policy here

Find out about Hamilton's emissions