Motion 1
Councillor Harkness to MOVE and Councillor Murphy to SECOND:
Declaring a Climate Emergency
This Council notes:
· That the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) holds that climate change represents ‘an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet.’
· That the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence points to climate change being man-made.
· The harmful effect that climate change has on our lives, natural habitats and eco-systems.
· The IPCC’s call to governments and civil society to take urgent action to address climate change.
· The resolutions made by over 100 UK local authorities and the UK Parliament in declaring climate emergencies.
· The commitment under the 5-Year Environment Plan by the ten Greater Manchester authorities to become carbon-neutral by 2038.
· Rochdale, Wigan, Bury, Salford, Manchester city, Trafford & Stockport Metropolitan Boroughs have all declared a climate change emergency, Oldham Brough should too.
This Council welcomes:
· The ambitious commitment at the July 2019 Council of the Deputy Council Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Resources and Low Carbon to make the Council carbon-neutral by 2025.
· The opportunity provided by the expiry of the Council’s current Climate Change strategy in 2020 to make new and more ambitious commitments to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2025.
This Council therefore resolves to:
· Declare a Climate Emergency and publicise why this declaration has been made to the people of our Borough, our media outlets and our statutory, voluntary and business sector partners to enlist their support in taking collective action in addressing climate change.
· Solicit the views and ideas of our staff, elected members, our partners and the general public in helping to craft a new Climate Change Strategy to replace our current strategy in 2020.
· Identify clearly within this Strategy the ambition for this Council to become carbon-neutral by 2025.
· Sign up to the UK100 Pledge to commit to consuming energy from renewable sources, including renewable energy generated by the Council itself.
· Re-establish a cross-party Climate Change Strategy Group to oversee the delivery of the new strategy in partnership with the Deputy Council Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Resources and Low Carbon.
· Ask the Chief Executive to write to the relevant Ministers, the Mayor of Greater Manchester and the Leaders of the other Greater Manchester authorities seeking their endorsement of our Climate Emergency declaration and our ambition to become carbon-neutral and requesting of central government the powers and financial resources to enable us to become carbon-neutral.
