Climate Change

Climate Change

On 8th October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a vital report on the state of climate science. They warned that if the planet warmed by 1.5C there would be some devastating consequences, such as the loss of most coral reefs, and increased extreme weather such as heatwaves and floods. Yet the consequences of allowing 2C warming would be truly catastrophic. Given that the planet is currently heading for 3-4C warming, keeping to 1.5C requires a radical shift across across energy, land, industrial, urban and other systems to reduce emissions, unprecedented in history for its speed.

With this in mind, the Parish Council at its meeting held on 12 June 2019, considered the issue of climate change and what it could do both directly and indirectly to improve the situation. As a result, the Council resolved to:

(a) declare a Climate Change Emergency and publicise this to the people of the Parish to raise awareness and support the public in taking action;
(b) prepare an Action Plan on the actions the Parish Council would take to address this emergency;
(c) pledge to make the local community carbon-neutral by 2030;
(d) call on Derbyshire County Council and central government to provide the powers and resources to make the 2030 target possible;
(e) commit to continue working with community partners across the area to deliver this new goal; and
(f) appoint Councillors Hartshorne, Hinds and Wood to a Climate Change Working Group.

The Working Group has recently begun looking at how to progress these resolutions and regular updates will be received at full Parish Council meetings. The Parish Council will obviously require the support and assistance of the local community therefore information on progress and developments in respect of achieving these local targets will be provided on the website.

You may find it interesting to find out what your own environmental footprint looks like. The WWF have produced a questionnaire to help you do so which can be viewed here.