Below is an extract from the recent agenda of the New Forest District Council Environment Panel. The full document is publicly available here.
"That the Environment Overview and Scrutiny Panel advise the Council that:-
(a) The Panel does not support the motion referred to the Panel by the Council; and
(b) Whilst the Panel recognises that other Councils have declared a climate emergency, this Council can achieve more on a local level through the development of an environment action plan, with the ambition of achieving a carbon neutral position for the New Forest District Council by 2050. Once developed, the action plan should give prominence within the Council’s Corporate Plan to ensure that environmental issues, including climate change, are taken into account in future decision making."
I am very pleased to say that the report was approved at the meeting on Thursday. A handful of climate change campaigners came along with placards to try and persuade the Panel to change its recommendation, but it was passed.
The original motion was put forward to the Council in May and was put on the blog here.
Unfortunately I was unable to persuade the other councillors to ignore the idea of cutting CO2 emissions altogether, but given the huge pressure that is coming from all directions it was good to find that my colleagues were prepared to buck the trend and not declare a climate emergency.
Ironically the councillor who put this motion forward had voted to grant, in our district, planning permission to Esso for a new £800 million low sulphur diesel plant. He had voted in favour of it, despite calling for net zero emissions by 2040. He quite rightly pointed out that if that application had been refused, the UK would have had to import the diesel from Russia or somewhere else. But he obviously did not see the inconsistency between voting for the new diesel plant and calling for the New Forest to become net zero CO2 by 2040. He had tacitly accepted that his motion was undeliverable, but could not or would not admit it.
"That the Environment Overview and Scrutiny Panel advise the Council that:-
(a) The Panel does not support the motion referred to the Panel by the Council; and
(b) Whilst the Panel recognises that other Councils have declared a climate emergency, this Council can achieve more on a local level through the development of an environment action plan, with the ambition of achieving a carbon neutral position for the New Forest District Council by 2050. Once developed, the action plan should give prominence within the Council’s Corporate Plan to ensure that environmental issues, including climate change, are taken into account in future decision making."
I am very pleased to say that the report was approved at the meeting on Thursday. A handful of climate change campaigners came along with placards to try and persuade the Panel to change its recommendation, but it was passed.
The original motion was put forward to the Council in May and was put on the blog here.
Unfortunately I was unable to persuade the other councillors to ignore the idea of cutting CO2 emissions altogether, but given the huge pressure that is coming from all directions it was good to find that my colleagues were prepared to buck the trend and not declare a climate emergency.
Ironically the councillor who put this motion forward had voted to grant, in our district, planning permission to Esso for a new £800 million low sulphur diesel plant. He had voted in favour of it, despite calling for net zero emissions by 2040. He quite rightly pointed out that if that application had been refused, the UK would have had to import the diesel from Russia or somewhere else. But he obviously did not see the inconsistency between voting for the new diesel plant and calling for the New Forest to become net zero CO2 by 2040. He had tacitly accepted that his motion was undeliverable, but could not or would not admit it.
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