Otago regional councillor Carmen Hope made that comment in a report on the conference, prepared for a Otago Regional Council's meeting yesterday morning.
Cr Hope was one of the regional council's representatives at the Local Government New Zealand conference in Auckland.
Forty ''willing attendees'' had attended the first joint session, and 55 at the second, she said.
Individual councils had also considered in a workshop setting what conversations each council should be ''having around climate change''.
As a workshop facilitator, Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne endorsed the suggestion ''all local government from Kaitaia to the Bluff'' was ''interested in learning from us here in Otago'' on the effects of climate change, and ''learning from what South Dunedin presents to us,'' she said.
The conference's closing speaker, Melbourne-based social entrepreneur Holly Ransom emphasised the importance of working to ''future-proof our communities''.
Considerable work would be required to encourage millennial and baby boomer cultures to connect, and for baby boomers to show the younger generation ''how to do the job'', Cr Hope said in her summary.
