Introduction
The Council meeting on the 30th October 2019 agreed a motion to declare a climate emergency.
It noted that the most recent State of the UK Climate 2017 report identified:
- We will be experiencing summers that are 2.5ºC warmer
- Our winters will be milder with the average temperatures being 2.2°C warmer
- There may be a 16% decrease in summer rainfall making our summers much drier but more variable
- Winters will be wetter with an average of 14% more rainfall
- Mean sea levels around the UK have risen by about 16 cm since the start of the 20th Century
The Council resolved to:
- Join other local authorities in declaring a climate emergency
- Create a member working group to propose an informed target for the Council’s carbon reduction by 2025 and to review it every five years thereafter, and to develop a “Carbon Action Plan” towards these goals, and that this working group should report back to the Council no later than March 2020
- Develop a strategy for RMBC to play a leadership role in promoting community, public and business partnerships in reducing carbon emissions
- Mandate officers to lobby government for additional resources to support this strategy where these are required
- Pledge to produce, in January of each year, a Rotherham Climate Emergency Annual Report, detailing the Council’s progress against the Carbon Action Plan
- Pledge to ask our partner organisations across Rotherham to support us by making clear commitments to dealing with this climatic crisis
- Require all officer reports from April 2020 to Cabinet and Full Council to contain impact assessments in relation to climate change