| Topic: | Re:Wandsworth's Climate Action Plan | |
| Posted by: | Matt Palmer | |
| Date/Time: | 24/01/20 08:53:00 |
| Apologies for the length of everything below, might only be for people who are really interested! I know Andy will be glued to it.. XR Wandsworth sent a deputation to the council meeting last night to present our response to the new climate plan. Each deputation only gets 5 mins to speak but there was a chance to engage further after all the deputations were complete. This is what was said at our deputation. "Wandsworth Extinction Rebellion welcomes these first stages of the council’s plan to make the borough carbon neutral by 2030, and we are encouraged to see it’s long list of actions to make Wandsworth, inner London’s greenest borough. We are all responding perilously late to an emergency that has already claimed many lives. The actions we take here in Wandsworth do not affect us alone, but our billions of fellow beings in every corner of the world. We must unite behind the science and if we see the opportunity to move faster we must seize it. This plan outlines the provisions made for a £5m investment in approximately 170 actions to support the council’s 2030 target. We would call attention to Nottingham City Council’s comparable plan, which has been able to set an earlier target date by ensuring that the climate emergency is implicit in every single decision that the council makes over the next eight years. We call on Wandsworth to make the same commitment; the first question on every project, in every meeting and in every committee should be “what will this work do to the environment, and what will this work do for the environment?” This climate question needs to be embedded in every single decision and every action Wandsworth Council takes from now on. We endorse the plan’s next step of measuring Scope 3 emissions and seek clarity as to why such an urgent move is currently unlikely to be a contractual requirement. We are conscious that this plan has the potential to affect every area of our fellow citizens’ lives over the coming decade. We do not underestimate the scale of the changes required to our lifestyles, but nor do we underestimate the opportunities offered or the resourcefulness of our people. Wandsworth Extinction Rebellion has over 700 members, and we are men, women and children from every corner of the borough and from every walk of life. We are ready to do our bit within the borough to ensure the transition to a clean, green Wandsworth over the shortest possible timeframe. We wholeheartedly support the Council’s commitment to work with residents, communities and businesses in partnership to co-produce and continuously improve its actions to address this emergency. In this spirit of openness and co-operation, we propose collaborating with the Council and other community groups to organise and convene a Wandsworth Climate Summit, harnessing the rich diversity within the borough, to find creative and inventive ways to engage the citizens of Wandsworth in this major opportunity to change our world." And this is the report back from after the meeting from one of our members. The deputations were heard with attention. And our central point - that climate couldn’t be a £5m add on to council business but must be central to every decision, every action, every committee - appeared to be taken. There was a lot of agreement that that was how they planned to think of it. Some dissenting voices on that including from the cabinet member who made allowance that there would still be decisions made that did not include thinking on climate and that they may work against the climate goals, so obviously plenty of scope for politics. But very encouraging that the Chair proposed changing the name of this crucial committee from Finance and Corporate to Finance and Sustainable, which was carried unanimously. An easy change but important symbolically and in practice because language does matter. Very few dissenting voices around the table. Even the one naysayer wasn’t saying nay to the thrust of the argument, more to the emotive rhetoric around it. The devil as always will be in the detail, and whether the council do in fact begin to put climate and biodiversity at the heart of every decision. In principle they’re interested in the idea of a climate assembly, although keen to say that their own proposal covers that, so we must keep on the pressure to ensure that any climate assembly convened is part of the process, not just a one off PR event. There is a slight risk that the council are interested in the participation of groups like ourselves as a means to promote what they do via social media, and not as genuinely equal partners, but time will tell. If we - the wider community - continue to engage without softening our own visions there is an opportunity to do great work |