On Wednesday 27th March 2019 Leeds City Council declared a Climate Emergency with a majority vote and set out a commitment to make Leeds carbon neutral by 2030. According to Councillor Judith Blake, leader of the council, the Youth4Climate strikes involving over 1.4 million students around the world was a major factor in persuading them that something has to be done. The vote was not unanimous because the Conservative members refused to vote for or against the motion.

Cllr Blake added “We know this isn’t enough, we know we have so much more to do. What we have to do is make sure that every single decision, we take across this council – whether it be transport, health, housing, planning or poverty reduction – that we embed sustain ability in our decision making.”

Since city and town councils have to plan ahead and have shrinking budgets I am sure we will have to wait to see new initiatives being implemented but in the meantime, whenever the council is involved in decision making involving projects in our area we can draw their attention to ways in which those projects can be more sustainably implemented or where projects contradict their commitment. One obvious project is the plan to increase the size of Leeds Bradford Airport.

The Leeds Climate Coalition have published a Leeds Carbon Roadmap which says that we could potentially be carbon neutral by 2030 but that is a highly ambitious target which would require a change in our behaviour including “reducing food waste by 80%, a 33% decrease in meat and dairy consumption and a 33% decrease in steel and concrete use.”

The Council have committed to working “with the Leeds Climate Commission to undertake a city-wide “conversation” with residents, Trade Unions, public sector organisations, businesses and the third sector on developing a plan with the actions and milestones required to reach the 2030 target. This will be ongoing throughout the year, with a report with the outcomes being presented to the Council’s Executive Board by the end of 2019.”