Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds is in Palau this week for the Pacific Islands Forum, in her new role heading an international push to get solar panels onto 300 million homes by the end of the decade.
Reynolds is the director of the Global Solar Council’s 300 Million Solar Homes initiative, a not-for-profit campaign to double the world’s rooftop solar and battery storage from about 150 million roofs.
She is there as the 55th Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting gets underway in Koror, where leaders are expected to endorse a plan to take the region to 100% renewables by 2035.
Pacific nations spend between 10 and 25% of their GDP on imported fossil fuels, according to research by UNSW’s Wesley Morgan cited by the campaign, which estimates a shift to renewables could save about $US700 million a year.
Reynolds is currently on a leave of absence from the Hobart City Council.
She told Pulse the trip had “nothing to do” with her civic role.
Advocacy group Solar Citizens named her in a social media post about its forum events as Hobart lord mayor and director of the solar initiative.
Reynolds said she believed Solar Citizens had simply tagged her page and that it was being corrected.
Reynolds took the solar role after announcing in May she would step down as lord mayor in August.
She said at the time that it felt like “the right time to pursue something different”.
She said the campaign would help fast-growing countries lift rooftop solar towards Australian levels, where more than 40% of homes already have panels.
But she reversed the resignation this week, after weeks in which the council was unable to say whether she or Zelinda Sherlock, the deputy lord mayor, was in charge.
Sherlock had been due to take over as acting lord mayor on August 9 following Reynolds’ departure.
Reynolds is undecided about whether she will stay on until October’s council elections, but has confirmed to Pulse on Monday that she will not recontest as lord mayor or councillor.
Councillor Marti Zucco this week asked the council to disclose whether the lord mayoral allowance, worth more than $140,000 a year, has continued during her leave.
