Issue - meetings

In September 2019, the Council joined a growing number of Councils that made a commitment to taking urgent action to address Climate Change and aim to become Carbon Neutral by 2030. We committed to becoming a carbon neutral council and doing everything in our power to ensure that Waverley is a zero carbon borough by 2030. Officers are working towards significantly reducing Waverley’s impact on climate change and will strive to get as close as possible to carbon neutrality.

This report presents Waverley’s Strategic Carbon Neutrality Action Plan 2020-2030 (Annexe 1) and the Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy (Annexe 2) bringing together input from all Council services and the wider public through a consultation that took place between September and October 2020. The action plan sets out the objectives and measures that will be taken in order to achieve the Councils carbon neutrality commitment. The Strategy is the overarching strategic document with links to all areas of work that have an impact on environmental sustainability. 

Recommendation

It is recommended that the Executive:

a.         Approve final Strategic Carbon Neutrality Action Plan 2020-2030 attached in Annexe 1, including the high-level targets within it, and acknowledges that it will be an evolving document.

b.         Approve the final Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy in Annexe 2

c.         Endorse the governance structure proposed, including the membership of the Climate Emergency Board.

d.         Note the responses within the consultation summary which is attached in Annexe 3.

The Executive RESOLVED to:

a.      Approve final Strategic Carbon Neutrality Action Plan 2020-2030 attached in Annexe 1, including the high-level targets within it, and acknowledges that it will be an evolving document.

b.      Approve the final Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy in Annexe 2.

c.      Endorse the governance structure proposed, including the membership of the Climate Emergency Board.

d.      Note the responses within the consultation summary which is attached in Annexe 3.

Reason: To adopt the final Strategic Carbon Neutrality Action Plan 2020-2030 and the Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy.

[ENVIRONMENT OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY COMMITTEE]

62.1    Cllr Steve Williams introduced the Carbon Neutrality Action Plan 2020-2030 and Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy and recommended them to the Executive. He thanked the Sustainability officers for the work they had put into the documents, and the significant amount of work already accomplished to move forward on many of the important actions to get our carbon footprint down as rapidly as possible. Cllr Williams also thanked all councillors who had engaged in developing the plan including the Environment Overview & Scrutiny Committee, and all council officers for what they had done so far to ensure that our work to tackle climate change and reduce our carbon footprint had permeated everything that the council did.

62.2    The same determination was needed to deal with the climate emergency as had been demonstrated in the response to the Covid pandemic. The Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy set out the strategic goals to reduce the borough council’s emissions, and the carbon emissions across the borough; and set out a strategy to mitigate the impact of impending climate change that was inevitable. Actions to cut carbon emissions would have financial consequences, but so would the costs of mitigating unchecked climate change; the investment in carbon reduction would reap financial, social and environmental dividends in the future.

62.3    The public consultation had demonstrated that 93% of residents felt climate change was important, and the council was committed to establishing a climate assembly, so that citizens of Waverley would be able to examine the issues and evidence, and help unlock the actions needed to become a net zero carbon borough by the end of the decade.

62.4    Cllr Mulliner recognised the changes made to the Action Plan, but felt that it was still aspirational and he remained cautious about what could be achieved. None of the long or medium term actions were costed, and only six of the 45 short-term actions were costed. There was no cost attached to the reducing the carbon emissions of the council’s housing stock, and there needed to be some realism about needing government support for that. There did not seem to be any clear idea of what the potential carbon savings of actions were, and he felt that a better use of budget would be to increase the number of officers working on the Action Plan, to turn it from an aspirational plan to one that meant business.

62.5    Cllr Seaborne acknowledged the significant improvement over the earlier versions of the Action Plan, but was concerned about the weight given to the public consultation responses as positive endorsement of the council’s approach. With under 1,000 responses, and no demographic data on respondents, it was incorrect to draw conclusions from the survey and use them as support for the Action Plan. Cllr Seaborne was also concerned that the Action Plan failed to include an item to specifically address the single largest source of emissions associated with the council’s activities; and it failed to show the real trajectory of emission reduction based  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62