To consider the motion submitted by Councillor Serjeant in accordance with Standing Order No. 21 (to be considered at this point on the agenda at the Mayor’s discretion):
“This Council notes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C’, published in October 2018, which confirmed the catastrophic consequences of manmade climate change and the urgent need to act to address the marked increases that we are already seeing with regards higher sea levels, flooding, other extreme weather events, crop failures and destruction of land and marine eco-systems.
This Council therefore:
(a) declares unequivocally that our town and borough, country and planet are facing a CLIMATE EMERGENCY;
(b) agrees to establish a Chesterfield Climate Change working group to respond to this challenge, with representation from key borough stakeholders including our schools, college and university, the private sector and community and voluntary organisations, including Transition Chesterfield, Chesterfield Climate Alliance and young people’s representative groups, with the shared purpose of enabling Chesterfield to become a low carbon, resilient and sustainable borough;
(c) invites the working group to report back and make recommendations to Full Council on a realistic date for Chesterfield to be carbon neutral, and to develop a costed action plan, by March 2020, setting out the required work to achieve this outcome;
(d) resolves to work with other local authorities and public, private and voluntary sector partners on carbon reduction projects;
(e) calls on the Government to provide the necessary resources and powers for Chesterfield Borough Council to achieve its ambition of becoming a carbon neutral town and borough.”
Minutes:
In accordance with Standing Order No. 4.5 at the Mayor’s discretion the Notice of Motion submitted under Standing Order No. 21 was considered at this point in the meeting.
It was moved by Councillor Serjeant and seconded by Councillor P Gilby that:
“This Council notes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C’, published in October 2018, which confirmed the catastrophic consequences of manmade climate change and the urgent need to act to address the marked increases that we are already seeing with regards higher sea levels, flooding, other extreme weather events, crop failures and destruction of land and marine ecosystems.
This Council therefore:
(a) declares unequivocally that our town and borough, country and planet are facing a CLIMATE EMERGENCY;
(b) agrees to establish a Chesterfield Climate Change working group to respond to this challenge, with representation from key borough stakeholders including our schools, college and university, the private sector and community and voluntary organisations, including Transition Chesterfield, Chesterfield Climate Alliance and young people’s representative groups, with the shared purpose of enabling Chesterfield to become a low carbon, resilient and sustainable borough;
(c) invites the working group to report back and make recommendations to Full Council on a realistic date for Chesterfield to be carbon neutral, and to develop a costed action plan, by March 2020, setting out the required work to achieve this outcome;
(d) resolves to work with other local authorities and public, private and voluntary sector partners on carbon reduction projects;
(e) calls on the Government to provide the necessary resources and powers for Chesterfield Borough Council to achieve its ambition of becoming a carbon neutral town and borough.”
As an amendment, it was moved by Councillor K Falconer and seconded by Councillor Bingham that paragraph (c) of the motion be amended to read as follows:
“(c) invites the working group to report back and make recommendations to Full Council for Chesterfield to be carbon neutral, by 2030 and to develop a costed action plan, within six months, setting out the required work to achieve this outcome;”
On being put to the vote the amendment to the motion was declared lost.
As an amendment, it was moved by Councillor Fordham and seconded by Councillor Niblock that paragraph (d) of the motion be amended to read as follows:
“(d) Resolves to work with other local authorities and public, private and voluntary sector partners on carbon reduction projects and that this might include:
i. To support the transition towards electric vehicles throughout Chesterfield and in particular in our car parks;
ii. To look for a step change in the vehicle fleet that services the Council, either directly or through contract, to ensure that as they are replaced they be electric, biogas or hybrid;
iii. For the Council and all of its offices and associated venues to become free of single-use plastic in all of its activities within 12 months;
iv. To begin a full review of all investments by the Borough and through associated pension and other bodies to divest of all fossil fuel investments by 2024;
v. For all new build Council houses to be built eco-friendly and carbon neutral including water capture, solar panels and heat retention;
vi. For the existing Borough Housing stock to be given options of eco measures on a rolling basis from the HRA that enable home provision of electric charging points, solar panels and water capture, in order to limit fossil fuel use;
vii. To lead and co-ordinate a Borough-wide dialogue with all local and regional managers of supermarkets within the Borough to encourage and facilitate measures to include scrapping of single-use plastic packaging, persuading then to cease the offering of all plastic bags at supermarkets and enabling the provision of re-useable cardboard boxes and paper carrier bags for shoppers in all stores. The aim should be to work with all local traders and commercial outlets in the community with the ambition of declaring the Borough plastic bag free by 2022;
viii. To identify and publicly promote Chesterfield as an eco-Borough with separate public rubbish disposal in all public spaces, with the encouragement of plastic re-use, removal of single use plastic, removal of all non-biodegradable plastic bags within the Borough from all public and commercial outlets;
ix.
To examine the document from Friends of the Earth – “33
actions local authorities can take on climate change” and to
seek to secure progress urgently on those recommendations within
the power of the Borough Council.”
On being put to the vote the amendment to the motion was declared lost.
On being put to the vote the motion was declared carried.