Wagga City Council faces community pressure to plan for climate change in future developments

Councillors voted unanimously at Monday night's council meeting to adopt the Local Strategic Planning Statement Wagga 2040, which will guide land use over the next two decades.

The draft LSPS received 74 community submissions, 21 of which raised concerns the plan did not adequately address the need to prepare for, or mitigate, the effects of climate change.

In response, council updated the LSPS to include an action to "further consider local opportunities that will contribute" to the NSW government's target of net zero emissions by 2050, which councillors endorsed on Monday after substantial discussion over wording in the document.

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The LSPS doesn't outline any specific plans to cut emissions and mentions adapting to a changing climate rather than mitigating it, but the document does highlight the need to protect Wagga's natural environment.

Council director of regional activation Michael Keys said climate change could be a "very divisive term" that would be more appropriately addressed in the upcoming Community Strategic Plan.

"Sustainability is a critical element of what we're about and long-term viability of the city. And certainly providing for future generations is critical to what we want to be and where we see ourselves as a city," he said.

The CSP is a separate guiding document with a new version to be finalised before the council election in September, after six months of community consultation.

Four members of the public spoke about the LSPS at the council meeting on Monday, three of whom raised concerns about the environment.

Edward Wellham gave an emotional speech against the report in which he implored council to "take action now" to save generations to come from an impossible future.

Mr Wellham identified himself as a National Party member and a former mining executive, saying he was "not speaking as a green leftie radical".

"This council can't even acknowledge, in their strategic report that goes out for 20 years, man-made climate change," he said.

"There's nobody in the Riverina that I know of that's qualified to talk about climate science and dismiss it."

Jenny McKinnon, the lead Greens candidate for the council election, spoke largely in favour of the LSPS but expressed her desire for Wagga to become "a model regional, sustainable city".

Mayor Greg Conkey said council was considering how Wagga could be more of a sustainable and resilient city in plans for future development.