WHILE climate change action faces the prospect of being rolled back at a federal level, efforts on the Yorke Peninsula are pushing on regardless.
The 'Making Yorke and Mid North Low Carbon Investment Ready' project is now underway, seeking to develop an understanding of the region's renewable energy potential and suitability for various carbon minimisation projects.
Initially the project was seeking to develop a prospectus document for investors to get involved in such projects, but with momentum now going the other way federally, the revised goal is to simply make the region more attractive for clean energy investment when the political climate becomes more favourable.
The unlikely proponent of the study is the University College of London, who base their Australian operations in Adelaide.
According to UCL's International Energy Policy Institute director Stefaan Simons, the Yorke Peninsula is a natural fit for their programs.
"SA is leading the way to enhance the resilience of regional communities preparing for climate change, and the Yorke Peninsula is the most advanced in the planning process," he said.
"The regional Climate Change Steering Committee already has an action plan and were looking at ways to implement that."
In collaboration with the Yorke and Mid North Regional Alliance, UCL is looking at ways to empower local communities to take their own action on climate change, and hopes to learn lessons to implement in other parts of the world.
Prof Simons said it was about more than just renewable energy, pointing out that core industries on the YP are already being hurt by climate change, with saline water affecting fisheries and droughts damaging farming operations.
"What we're looking at is what is being done now, what the threats are and how to adapt in a way to become resilient to those changes," he said.
"It often means switching away from intensive land use or chemicals, or not growing crops that need lots of water.
"Perhaps it will involve increasing biodiversity, and maybe you move away from fishing in certain areas to attract eco-tourists."
The present focus of the project is tapping the minds of locals through a series of public workshops and an online survey.
Workshops have been held at Snowtown on June 4, Ardrossan on June 10 and Booleroo Centre on Tuesday.
Roughly 10 to 15 people attended each of the workshops, with a further 30 responses received from the survey.
According to Yorke and Mid North Regional Alliance climate change coordinator Natasha Hall, respondents and participants had so far indicated a strong level of acceptance for solar panels, with 92 per cent of survey responses supporting use of the technology, while wind farms were the least supported form of renewable power, with just 42pc support.
"From the open-ended questions it is clear those against wind farms are concerned primarily about health impacts (either personally experienced or reported) and dissatisfaction with the processes used to establish the existing wind farms," she said.
One of the fiercest opponents of wind farms in the region is Heartland Farmers, a collective of more than 200 farmers in the central Yorke Peninsula.
The group's main target is the $1.5 billion Ceres project, which, if enacted, would have 197 turbines powering Adelaide using an undersea transmission cable laid down across the Gulf of St Vincent.
Approved by the state government in February, the development would generate 500 jobs during construction, along with an expected 50 full-time jobs over the 25-year operational life of the wind farm.
* Full report in Stock Journal, July 3, 2014 issue.
