The city's industry will need to get involved if Wollongong City Council's climate change mitigation plan is a success, Cr David Brown said at Monday night's meeting.
Councillors at the meeting voted unanimously to place the plan - which sets a council net zero emissions date of 2030 and 2050 for community emissions to hit that mark - on public exhibition.
Cr David Brown said the plan would require more than the council meeting its targets.
"The number of times I've said here that the key will be getting people outside this building - the big Industries, the big institutions - to get behind it," Cr Brown said.
"They're as much a player in this as we are, perhaps more so."
Fellow Labor councillor Tania Brown noted that the steelworks had recognised climate change meant changing the way it did business.
"We are an economy in transition, making that move away from coal," Cr Tania Brown said.
"There's work that BlueScope is doing in recognising that with the master planning process that we've been through, a lot of the land that is becoming available is because they're changing the way they do business."
The council had an important role to play in reducing community emissions, Cr Mithra Cox said, through empowering people rather than telling them what to do.
"There is a really big role for council in ensuring that we can have all-electric homes, making sure that the electricity connections that they have in the kitchens are good enough that they have induction stoves," Cr Cox said.
"It's also ensuring that new buildings, particularly apartments, have electricity in the car parks in basements should people want to switch to electric vehicles.
"When you build an apartment, it's going to be there for the next 50, 70 or 80 years. The decisions we're going to be making are going to be with us for a long time."
Cr Cox also noted that the Whyte's Gully tip was the biggest source of the council emissions and that she didn't feel they could capture 100 per cent of them by 2030.
Cr Dom Figliomeni also spoke about the tip and how the level of emissions was likely to get worse.
"The big developments taking place around Wollongong, all of those really put a strain on this mitigation plan," Cr Figliomeni said.
"All of these residents are going to have waste, are going to add to that demand."
Also at Tuesday night's meeting Labor Cr Tania Brown was re-elected as deputy mayor.
She was one of three councillors to nominate, along with Cr Cox and Cr Cameron Walters.
Cr Cox was knocked out in the first round with just two votes, while Cr Walters had four and Cr Brown six.
In the second round between Cr Walters and Cr Brown, the two Green votes of Cr Cox and Cr Cath Blakey went to Labor, re-electing the incumbent Cr Brown.
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Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
