Resolved –

Council notes

The ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C’, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October 2018, (a) describes the enormous harm that a 2°C rise is likely to cause compared with a 1.5°C rise, and (b) confirms that limiting Global Warming to 1.5°C may still be possible with ambitious action from national and sub-national authorities, civil society and the private sector.  This is indeed a climate emergency.

As a Council, since passing our own January 2010 energy procurement motion with all-party support, we have made great steps in reducing our own carbon emissions and have exceeded our aims of achieving a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020.  We must however go further faster.

Council welcomes recent climate action by the London Mayor and Assembly, leading UK authorities including Bristol and Manchester and other city authorities around the world to declare – and commit resources to tackling our Climate Emergency.

Council welcomes the Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (the LEP) decision to adopt a new energy strategy and delivery plan which adopts the ambitions of the Paris agreement.

To achieve the significant results that are required to fulfil this ambition, the council is focussing on delivering five key priorities which, as well as tackling climate change, also create jobs and help people reduce their fuel bills:

• Delivering a reduction in the energy used for street lighting, saving emissions and also saving the council money in energy bills.
• Delivering a District Heat network to save on heating costs of the council estate and of partner organisations in the civic quarter
• Embracing the opportunities provided by the H21 Leeds City Region scheme
• Increasing the proportion of EV hybrid vehicles in use in the council fleet and supporting the roll out of EV charging points across the district to help promote uptake of electric vehicle use.
• Increasing the amount of renewable energy and electricity generation on council estate.

This Council:

• Requests officers to report to Regeneration & Environment Overview & Scrutiny Committee setting out the key challenges and options for delivering the five priorities.
• Requests that the Chief Executive writes to Government requesting: a) additional funding and powers to enable us to deliver the Paris agreement and (b) that ministers work with other governments to ensure that the UK maximises carbon reduction by 2036 in order to fulfil the objectives of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

·         Will play an active part in the Leeds City Region Energy Summit being held in Spring this year, where the setting of regional energy reduction targets will be discussed.  We commit to challenging the region’s ambition on this agenda.

ACTION:        Chief Executive/Strategic Director Place/Strategic Director Corporate Resources/City Solicitor (Overview and Scrutiny Lead)