Climate change will not be discussed at the next EDDC meeting, as reported in the Herald:
Motion to support climate change blocked by council boss
A motion to recognise the importance of climate change and support young people’s calls for immediate action has been blocked by council bosses.
Cllr Matthew Booth said: “On Friday school pupils and students from across the UK carried out a mass walk out, the UK Youth Strike for Climate Change, in protest at the lack of action by politicians and policymakers on the critical situation we now face with climate change and global warming.
“It was UN scientists that wrote an inter-governmental report published in October 2018 by the IPCC that said we now have only 12 years to reduce global temperatures to a maximum 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels or global warming will be irreversible. It seems that only our younger generation are now actually taking this report seriously.
“This motion proposes that we must focus on the main critical issue that we face, as outlined by the IPCC report, and that is for this council to immediately address the urgent need to reduce carbon in the atmosphere to slow down global warming.”
Cllr Booth said councils across the country were passing motions to become carbon neutral by 2030 and there were any ways that we could begin, like by:
• Partnering with scientists at Exeter or Plymouth universities.
• Ensuring we carry out strategic environmental assessments on all developments.
• Focus on long-term solutions to green energy, such as through transport, improved insulation, and solar heating.
• Reforestation which is the quickest and cheapest route to carbon reduction and limiting deforestation.
Cllr Booth said: “I personally do not care how we begin to do this, or who does it, but that we act now not wait for some planned strategy in the future.”