‘INADEQUATE’ plans to tackle the climate emergency in Warwickshire lack detail and do not go far enough, says a county environmental campaign group.
Warwickshire Climate Alliance (WCA) has called on Warwickshire County Council (WCC) to improve its plans to address climate change.
A WCA report sent to councillors denounced the council for setting no interim targets for carbon reductions, and making ‘over-optimistic assumptions’ about the effects of climate change.
The group also criticised WCC – which declared a climate emergency in July 2019 – for not allowing public scrutiny of its Climate Emergency Working Group, and for separating climate concerns from its other plans.
WCA is calling on the council to set interim targets for carbon reductions, appoint a cabinet member for climate change and the environment, upgrade the Climate Emergency Working Group to a committee, allow public scrutiny, embed climate change plans into all future work, and use the Met Office worst-case scenario in all future work on climate.
Campaign groups Transition Town Rugby, Kenilworth All Together Greener, and Stratford-upon-Avon Friends of the Earth have all backed the WCA’s report.
WCA chair David Mond said: “The current climate emergency action plan occupies just two of the 23 pages of WCC’s Council Plan.
‘We have read the council’s plans closely and believe our recommendations will support the council to improve the plan and start to tackle what is the defining issue of our time.
“We very much hope that the council will take our concerns seriously and work with us to prepare Warwickshire for the challenging times ahead.”
WCA is calling for a meeting with the Climate Emergency Working Group to discuss its recommendations.
WCC’s environment spokeswoman Coun Heather Timms said: “We actively welcome the evaluation that WCA has undertaken. We look forward to meeting with the WCA to share the details of our ongoing climate change programme which address several of the recommendations made in the report, which their desktop review did not pick up.
“We welcome the recommendations of the report and look forward to the opportunity to work collaboratively with WCA and other key strategic partners to ensure that our plans for tackling climate change are impactful across the county and wider sub-region.”
Visit www.warwickshireclimatealliance.org to view the WCA report.
Visit https://tinyurl.com/5yes3mey for more information about WCC’s plans to tackle the climate change emergency.
