. PROPOSED BY COUNCILLOR STUART ASHLEY
Motion
CLIMATE EMERGENCY
This Council should consider the need to declare a climate emergency. This
consideration should be undertaken by the Resources and Cross Cutting Scrutiny
Committee to undertake a full and proper review of whether a declaration is needed,
what we are doing now to mitigate a climate emergency, what we need to do and to
develop a meaningful, strategic and impactful action plan. On completion of the
Scrutiny Review to report back to Cabinet with its findings and recommendations.
RATIONALE
As many fellow Councillors will be aware there is an international social movement
gaining momentum calling on public bodies to declare a climate change emergency
and make commitments to do more to tackle the most serious risk facing future
generations.
We only have to look at the news to see rivers and oceans filled with plastics and
job losses even within our region as industry adapts to a new world and new low
carbon technologies resulting in global industrial shifts of a like we haven’t seen
before. Welsh Government has set targets of reducing emissions by 80% by 2030
with 5 year carbon budgets.
We must and need to participate in this agenda. We need to know what we are
doing now and we need to have a plan for the future. I am fully supportive of us
making a declaration of a climate change emergency. However I also want it to be
meaningful and I want it to be done in an inclusive, cross party fashion and any
output we produce inform existing and future work programmes, strategies and
potentially even budgets.
So I therefore propose that today Council adopt my motion that we review the need
to declare a climate change emergency and task the Resources and Cross-Cutting
Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which I Chair, to undertake a full and proper
review of what we are doing now, what do we need to do and then we can develop
a meaningful, strategic and impactful action plan to determine the need for such an
important declaration

The motion was amended and agreed that the Council should declare a Climate Emergency.