Wokingham Borough Council’s Liberal Democrat administration’s record on climate change is 12 disappointing months of inaction.
That is the assessment of the Council’s Conservative Group as it reviewed the latest progress report on the council’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2030. Apart from a few, non-council initiatives, there has been no progress in reducing carbon emissions by the Council.
The report attempts to take credit for initiatives such as the ECO3 scheme, a Central Government scheme to improve energy efficiency and replace aging boilers in people’s homes.
At the same time, the administration highlights an increased rate of recycling.
However, the Conservatives have pointed out that this effort is down to residents.
Instead, the Council’s policy to scrap weekly waste collection is likely to make recycling rates worse, and food waste recycling rates have dropped since the Liberal Democrats’ removed caddy liners.
Under the previous Conservative administration, the Council declared a Climate Emergency in July 2019, committing the Council to reducing the Borough’s carbon footprint to be net carbon zero by 2030.
Cllr Peter Harper, Shadow Executive Member for Climate Emergency, said:
“The current plan reduces the Borough’s carbon footprint to just under 50% of the current emissions, with some vague plan to offset the remainder. According to the Council’s own calculations this would need the whole borough to be planted with trees to offset the 240 ktCO2e that are due to be emitted in 2030. Clearly this is unrealistic.
“The cost of delivering the actions in this progress report is estimated to be £250m, which is a huge amount of money. But even with that large budget, the Lib Dems will be asking for more funding. No wonder they can’t afford to empty the bins or cut the grass.
“This Lib Dem administration promises big but delivers little. Instead they dither and delay, ducking responsibility.
“Lib Dem lead on Climate Change, Cllr Sarah Kerr, is already attempting to shift the blame onto central government. She should be looking at her own party’s leadership of the council to find the culprit for the lack of progress on their watch.”
Emissions in 2030 are predicted to be 240ktCOe.
Appendix 3, page 198, says carbon sequestration of 170 hectares of trees, hedges and orchards capture 2,329 tCO2e each year.
To capture 240ktCOe would require 17,520 hectares or 67 square miles.
Wokingham Borough Council is 69 square miles meaning the whole borough would need to be covered in trees to offset the emissions in 2030.
