At this Wednesday’s Council Meeting, Labour Councillors in Rotherham will join national calls in declaring a climate emergency. Our motion will resolve to commit Rotherham Council to a number of actions to deal with the climate crisis and reduce carbon emissions. 

Labour’s Cllr David Roche and Cllr Sarah Allen will move our climate emergency motion at this week’s Council Meeting in Rotherham. Labour Councillors will commit the Council to a number of actions to deal with the climate crisis. One immediate action will be to create a working group which will work to propose an informed target for the Council’s carbon reduction by 2025 and to review it every five years afterwards.

Our motion also pledges to develop a “Carbon Action Plan” towards meeting these carbon reduction goals, and that the working group should report back on its’ work no later than March 2020. We are also committing to produce in January of each year, a Rotherham Climate Emergency Annual Report that will detail the Council’s progress against the Carbon Action Plan.

Cllr David Roche, Labour Councillor for Hoober Ward, will move our motion at the Council Meeting and has said:

“I’m proud that our Labour Council in Rotherham will be joining the national calls in declaring a climate emergency. Our motion recognises the threat of climate change and will commit the Council to a number of strong actions to tackle this crisis.

 

From creating a new working group to develop a target for carbon reduction, to creating a Carbon Action Plan and producing an annual Climate Emergency Report, Labour Councillors in Rotherham are committed to doing what we can locally to tackle the climate crisis.”

Our motion recognises that there are a number of opportunities for the Council to reduce its’ carbon emissions. However, we also celebrate a number of policies that are already in place in Rotherham which will help to promote cleaner, greener energy in the borough.

Our recent policy on setting up a community energy switching scheme will help move properties – including council homes – onto 100% renewable sources of electricity. Rotherham Council has also been successful in installing a number of new electric vehicle charging points across the borough as well.

You can read our Climate Change Emergency motion in full using the button below.