Sheffield Council pass motion for more action on the Climate Emergency.

The Green Party motion voted on Wednesday 7th February, was amended, but mainly agreed. The final text is below. It is great news that the Council will now consider a Work Place Parking Levy, Green Bonds and the ideas of Adfree Cities. It is appropriate that the South Yorkshire Regional Mayor, Oliver Coppard, is criticised for dragging his feet on bus franchising and the Government are criticised for failing to provide the necessary funding for Sheffield to make good progress towards net zero. It is bizarre that the Lib Dem amendment criticising Labour and Greens for not voting for food waste recycling, (which would not have been affordable and would not have provided much in the way of carbon savings) was passed! I can only assume that Labour members mis-voted on this amendment. If that is the case one wonders what other mis-votes took place!

This motion answers some of the questions I posed the Council here, so I will be updating this page. Here is the amended motion in full.

FIVE YEARS SINCE DECLARING A CLIMATE EMERGENCY

RESOLVED: That:-

this Council notes:-

(a) Sheffield City Council (SCC) has declared a Climate Emergency and a Nature Emergency and has an ambition to become a zero-carbon city by 2030;

(b) in 2019, The Tyndall Centre produced a report stating that Sheffield City Council must reduce its carbon emissions by 14% each year to achieve zero carbon by 2030;

(c) the latest 2022 CO2e emissions data indicates that Sheffield City Council has reduced emissions by 3% since 2019, and needs to reduce emissions by a further 77% by 2030 to be in line with the Sheffield-wide 80% reduction on 2019 emissions that the Pathways to Decarbonisation Report suggested could be achievable by 2030;

(d) that public transport has a crucial role to play in addressing the climate emergency and welcomes plans to bring buses and trams under public ownership, and measures the Council is taking to encourage active travel;

(e) that Olivia Blake MP has brought the Climate and Ecology Bill to Parliament with cross-party support; the Bill is drafted by many of the UK’s leading climate and ecology scientists and is the only piece of proposed or existing legislation that would tackle the intertwined climate and nature crises together;

this Council believes:-

(f) Green involvement in the Council Administration has been central to the climate action the Council has taken: from introducing Climate Impact Assessments, to the creation of the Ten Point Plan for Climate Action, to ensuring major schemes like Connecting Sheffield and the Clean Air Zone progress in the face of political opposition;

(g) that unrelenting action to tackle the climate emergency is the only way to achieve zero carbon by 2030, and the Council should be working at all Policy Committees on urgently reducing emissions;

(h) that, despite cross party support for net zero, progress has been slow due to the lack of the very substantial investment required to make significant carbon savings, the slow pace of transformation of industries, particularly energy, transport and land use and a dearth of compelling offset opportunities;

(i) the substantial cash investment required alongside other demands on public funds mean that strong economic growth is required in Sheffield and elsewhere, alongside technological innovation to reduce carbon emissions in better ways;

(j) the failure of Labour and Green councillors to vote for a food waste recycling service represents an unfortunate missed opportunity to reduce carbon emissions;

(k) South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority foot dragging over bus franchising and failed bus partnerships have delivered an inferior bus service to the people of Sheffield and kept people in their cars;

(l) that the Government has utterly failed to provide the necessary funds to tackle the climate emergency;

(m) that Sheffield’s progress is comparable with other core cities and there has been notable successes including cross-party support for climate action the Council has taken: from introducing Climate Impact Assessments, to the creation of the Ten Point Plan for Climate Action, to ensuring major schemes like Connecting Sheffield and the Clean Air Zone progress, and notes the work currently underway to futureproof our city’s workforce, including the Council-funded upskilling of plumbers and heating engineers in air source heat pump technologies;

(n) that to reach net zero, the Council should undertake more cross-cutting work, and that requiring Policy Committees to set targets in isolation risks creating siloed working;

this Council resolves to:-

(o) ask the Transport, Regeneration and Climate Policy Committee to consider adding to its work programme, implementation of a workplace parking levy to leverage funding for active and public transport at comparable levels to Nottingham City Council, who raised around £680 million over 10 years;

(p) request the Strategy and Resources Policy Committee to consider adding to its work programme, development of an advertising policy which does not support high carbon industries and products harmful to people and nature, such as promoted by Adfree Cities;

(q) request the Economic Development and Skills Policy Committee to consider adding to its work programme, the completion of the Green Jobs and Skills Strategy initiated by Greens during the Cooperative Executive;

(r) call on the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority to make more funding available for Green Skills;

(s) ask the Strategy and Resources Policy Committee to consider adding to its work programme, doing further work on Climate Impact Assessment processes and methodologies so that policy options can be compared on an estimated cost per tonne of CO2 saved basis;

(t) remind all Policy Committees to ensure the Climate Impact Assessment is used to develop all SCC decisions and actions;

(u) ask the Transport, Regeneration and Climate Policy Committee to consider adding to its work programme, an update on progress against the Renewable Energy strategy proposed by Greens in November 2022’s full Council meeting;

(v) ask the Strategy and Resources Policy Committee to consider adding to its work programme as a matter of urgency, investigation of the practicalities of issuing Green Bonds to raise extra funding to support climate action; and

ask the Member Development Working Group to ensure all councillors are offered training on how to understand the carbon impact of policy decisions.