Environment, Homepage Blog

How good is the RBWM Environment and Climate Strategy?

The RBWM Environment and Climate Strategy was presented to the Council. It was not well received by experts and residents because of the many inherent problems. What did the Deputy Chair of the Climate Panel say?

Here are my comments on RBWM’s

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  • Thank you Cllr Stimson for agreeing to bring this back in six months.
  • Stakeholders and residents feel they have not been listened to hence their fervent representations, the question from residents today; Stakeholders are starting to disengage and stop supporting the Council; one world-renowned expert has even called this paper and Council “hapless” and withdrawn his support.
    • We have to address this issue, involve residents, and collaborate because we are all in this together
  • This isn’t easy. We haven’t been in this place before, and I hope we never will. And much good work has been done by many including Chris Joyce, Olivia, and Russell but, we need to start off on the right foot.
  • Climate Change Resilience must be included to safeguard residents and services
  • My suggestion is that we have three clear objectives to cover
    • Net Zero Carbon Emissions by 2030 or 2040
    • Protect and restore native Biodiversity
    • Develop Climate Change Resilience for the extreme weather already guaranteed to come our way
  • We must be clear and precise about our three key objectives, the metrics, the targets, and the timeframes and then turn these into policy and report on each in every report that is produced by this Council, including BLP & SPD
  • We have been set a limited budget of Carbon that we can use before we start to hit dangerous concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere, which will precipitate extreme levels of Climate Change. Targeted carbon emissions are straight line but should be logarithmic with massive reductions in Carbon emissions in the earlier years. What that means is that our Borough is almost guaranteed to tip us into the danger zone. It is not am
  • Baseline emissions should be produced from scratch using metrics which should then be used to assess all projects and, evaluated for success
  • Borough-wide baseline assessments of biodiversity, soil types, and geography and geology must be produced to inform a Biodiversity Strategy, and to create metrics including BI & GI to be used in, for example, BLP – we must take up the free offer of help from Natural England and DEFRA
  • Biodiversity should target protection of species, habitat, and green space, and target restoration back to say 1970, 1950, or 1900 levels including greening urban areas including the use of biomimicry, as in Jakarta
  • Passivhaus standards for building materials, processes and building operations should be applied to all new builds and even retrofits.
  • SPD must include standards and methodologies for zero-carbon, biodiversity restoration and, climate change resilience
  • The scope should be clear and apply to Council assets, contracts, subcontracts and regulations we define
  • Transportation must be decarbonized which accounts of 40% carbon emissions
  • Plant based diets must be promoted, which will result in a 10% reduction in carbon emissions
  • We can start work on the plan now but, we must start off on the right foot, and agree to bring back a revised strategy in 6 months and include input from stakeholders, a Board of Governance and, two Citizen Assemblies – again will be funded by DEFRA – don’t miss this golden opportunity, this once in a life time opportunity, this life or death opportunity.
  • We have to be aggressive as deaths due to climate change will be unrelenting

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Accountably your, a rather disappointed,

Wisdom

Cllr Wisdom Da Costa

 

Caveat

  • This post is part of the WWRA Councillors regular series of Blogs to inform and empower local residents; as promised in their election leaflet
  • It is also to comply with clause v of the Members Code of Conduct which states, “You must be as open as possible about your decisions and actions and the decisions and actions of your authority and should be prepared to give reasons for those decisions and actions.”
  • The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of the West Windsor Residents Association (WWRA).
  • Any errors are unintentional so, I would value you bringing them to my intention so I can correct them. You can Email me cllr.dacosta@rbwm.gov.uk