Agenda item

Purpose: to propose changes to the Council’s climate emergency declaration (made in July 2019).  The changes that are sought will enhance, strengthen and bring clarity to the original declaration following the initial 4 years of delivery and all that has been learnt in that period.

Council considered the report (Agenda item 18) concerning the proposed changes to the Council’s climate emergency declaration (made in July 2019). The changes sought would enhance, strengthen and bring clarity to the original declaration following the initial four years of delivery.

MOTION: Proposed by Councillor Owen Jeffery and seconded by Councillor Martha Vickers:

That the Councilapprove the following enhancements to the original climate emergency declaration:

• The ecological emergency is recognised through the new declaration being a ‘climate and ecological emergency’.

• Changing the language used in the declaration from ‘carbon neutral’ to ‘net zero’ to bring us in line with Government and business terminology.

• Clarification of targets within the declaration with the following being the Council’s focus in relation to reducing emissions:

Achieving net zero by 2030 for the Council’s operations and activities.

Facilitating, influencing, promoting and encouraging a reduction in emissions across West Berkshire to enable net zero to be achieved as soon as practicable for the District.

The proposed new wording for the declaration and recommended actions relating to the ecological emergency are included in section 8 of this report.

Councillor Jeffery said that he was pleased that this Council had previously unanimously approved a Declaration of Climate Emergency and he wanted to strengthen this by adding the term ecological. The Council was in a position to go against the trend of rolling back on climate change targets. There had been plenty of scientific evidence supporting that ecosystems were declining due to habitat loss and climate change. Declaring an ecological emergency would highlight the importance of preserving our local flora. Air quality and water pollution also had a negative impact on public health. Declaring an ecological emergency would provide a legal and policy framework that the Council could follow and allocate appropriate resource.

Councillor Carolyne Culver mentioned that she had proposed an ecological emergency back in September 2021 so she was pleased to see this being proposed. There was further work to be done and there would need to be cross reference with the Council Strategy, however consideration was also needed for biodiversity net gain as well as the obligation under the Environment Act for local nature strategies and networks. A local hedgehog positive campaign, as promised at the last Council meeting, also needed to be included. She encouraged the new Administration to consider things such as embedded carbon, that the Environmental Delivery Plan did not have biodiversity as a key theme and more local environmental groups needed to be included. She also recommended that more collaboration could be done with parish councils and would encourage more parish councils to be involved with the Parish Climate Forum. There was also a need to work with local land owners and farmers.

Councillor Ross Mackinnon said that the report was asking Council to declare an ecological emergency but there was no evidence supporting the need within West Berkshire. He was not saying that there was not a need but the report needed to have supporting evidence as the external report referenced dated back to 2019 and was nationwide. Most of the deliverables mentioned in the report were things the Council should be doing anyway. The report said there was no financial, legal, equalities, risk management, digital services or HR implications so it seemed there was no impact at all.  He said his Group would support the report but did not feel that there was a need to declare an emergency.

Councillor Tony Vickers mentioned that just because you could not count certain things or have data it did not mean they did not have value. The world’s environment was at risk because we did not value things, the environment did not fit into an accountants way of thinking. Just because we could not put a number on the issue did not mean there was not an emergency. He endorsed the report.

Councillor Matt Shakespeare mentioned that there was plenty of empirical evidence within West Berkshire supporting this report, he gave the example of the article in the Pangbourne magazine and the recent Environment Agency’s report on the River Pang.

Councillor Martha Vickers said that there appeared to be cross chamber agreement on the report. This was an important motion and climate and ecological issues were closely linked. The report gave evidence and there were 51 sites of scientific interest in the district. She asked the chamber to acknowledge that this was an emergency and for the Council to get on with work that needed to be done.

Councillor Jeffery in making concluding comments said that he agreed with comments made that there was further work to be done, that carbon embedment needed to be considered, that further environmental groups needed to be engaged and he agreed that there was more work to be done with working with parish councils and local land owners.

The Motion was put to the meeting and duly RESOLVED.