In accordance with Standing Order No. 4.5 at the Mayor’s discretion the
Notice of Motion submitted under Standing Order No. 21 was considered
at this point in the meeting.
It was moved by Councillor Serjeant and seconded by Councillor P Gilby
that:
“This Council notes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C’, published in
October 2018, which confirmed the catastrophic consequences of
manmade climate change and the urgent need to act to address the
marked increases that we are already seeing with regards higher sea
levels, flooding, other extreme weather events, crop failures and
destruction of land and marine ecosystems.
This Council therefore:
(a) declares unequivocally that our town and borough, country and
planet are facing a CLIMATE EMERGENCY;
(b) agrees to establish a Chesterfield Climate Change working group to
respond to this challenge, with representation from key borough
stakeholders including our schools, college and university, the
private sector and community and voluntary organisations,
including Transition Chesterfield, Chesterfield Climate Alliance and
young people’s representative groups, with the shared purpose of
enabling Chesterfield to become a low carbon, resilient and
sustainable borough;
(c) invites the working group to report back and make
recommendations to Full Council on a realistic date for
Chesterfield to be carbon neutral, and to develop a costed action
plan, by March 2020, setting out the required work to achieve this
outcome;
(d) resolves to work with other local authorities and public, private and
voluntary sector partners on carbon reduction projects;
(e) calls on the Government to provide the necessary resources and
powers for Chesterfield Borough Council to achieve its ambition of
becoming a carbon neutral town and borough.”
As an amendment, it was moved by Councillor K Falconer and seconded
by Councillor Bingham that paragraph (c) of the motion be amended to
read as follows:
“(c) invites the working group to report back and make
recommendations to Full Council for Chesterfield to be carbon
neutral, by 2030 and to develop a costed action plan, within six
months, setting out the required work to achieve this outcome;”
On being put to the vote the amendment to the motion was declared lost.
As an amendment, it was moved by Councillor Fordham and seconded by
Councillor Niblock that paragraph (d) of the motion be amended to read
as follows:
“(d) Resolves to work with other local authorities and public, private
and voluntary sector partners on carbon reduction projects and
that this might include:
i. To support the transition towards electric vehicles throughout
Chesterfield and in particular in our car parks;
ii. To look for a step change in the vehicle fleet that services the
Council, either directly or through contract, to ensure that as
they are replaced they be electric, biogas or hybrid;
iii. For the Council and all of its offices and associated venues to
become free of single-use plastic in all of its activities within 12
months;
iv. To begin a full review of all investments by the Borough and
through associated pension and other bodies to divest of all
fossil fuel investments by 2024;
v. For all new build Council houses to be built eco-friendly and
carbon neutral including water capture, solar panels and heat
retention;
vi. For the existing Borough Housing stock to be given options of
eco measures on a rolling basis from the HRA that enable
home provision of electric charging points, solar panels and
water capture, in order to limit fossil fuel use;
vii. To lead and co-ordinate a Borough-wide dialogue with all local
and regional managers of supermarkets within the Borough to
encourage and facilitate measures to include scrapping of
single-use plastic packaging, persuading then to cease the
offering of all plastic bags at supermarkets and enabling the
provision of re-useable cardboard boxes and paper carrier bags
for shoppers in all stores. The aim should be to work with all
local traders and commercial outlets in the community with the
ambition of declaring the Borough plastic bag free by 2022;
viii.To identify and publicly promote Chesterfield as an ecoBorough with separate public rubbish disposal in all public spaces, with the encouragement of plastic re-use, removal of
single use plastic, removal of all non-biodegradable plastic
bags within the Borough from all public and commercial outlets;
ix. To examine the document from Friends of the Earth – “33
actions local authorities can take on climate change” and to
seek to secure progress urgently on those recommendations
within the power of the Borough Council.”
On being put to the vote the amendment to the motion was declared lost.
On being put to the vote the motion was declared carried.