16e Councillor W Forster This Council recognises that:
– The consequences of global temperatures rising above 1.5
degree celsius are so severe that preventing this from
happening must be humanity’s number one priority.
– That the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
states that limiting global warming to 1.5°C may still be
possible, but only with ambitious action from national and subnational authorities, civil society, the private sector, and local
communities;
– All governments (national, regional and local) have a duty to
limit the negative impacts of an increasingly erratic climate
and biodiversity loss. Local authorities that recognise this
should not wait for the national government to change its
policies;
– Woking Borough Council has a good history on environmental
issues and has already begun to assess a realistic timescale
to make the Council carbon neutral.
Council therefore resolves to:
– Declare a Climate Emergency;
– Pledge to make Woking Borough Council, its wholly-owned
companies and contractors carbon neutral by 2030;
– Call on the Government to provide the powers and resources
to make the 2030 target possible;
– Ask the Climate Change Working Group to oversee a plan to
deliver the 2030 target and report to Full Council in 6 months
on immediate and longer term actions to be taken.