A step forward has been made in the Isle of Wight’s fight against climate change.
In an important and fundamental decision, the Isle of Wight Council has approved ‘Mission Zero’, the climate and environmental strategy which sets out how the Island can be carbon-neutral by 2040 — 10 years before the government target.
The council only has direct control over about 1% of the Island’s carbon admissions but has vowed to make all its assets carbon neutral by 2030, with schools following suit by 2035.
The council has been developing the strategy since it declared a Climate Emergency in July 2019 and has come up with an accompanying action plan, setting out 160 measures.
Councillor Jonathan Bacon, the cabinet member for environment, heritage and waste management, said since the declaration 2 years ago, perceptions and ideas have changed, particularly with the recent extreme weather. He said:
“Apart from the most blinkered people, we recognise there is a problem and it needs to be dealt with.
“We are just a small part of the national and worldwide jigsaw but we need everyone to do what they can, hence the strategy.
“Apart from carbon neutrality, our approach is to seek wider benefits to assist a sustainable future and protect and enhance our environment here on the Island.”
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Some of the actions in the plan will encourage job creation in environmental sectors, such as clean energy and energy efficiency, while also signposting private homeowners, landlords and new housing developments to meet future net carbon zero standards.
The authority will have a maximum carbon offset of 15% through rewilding and land-use schemes on council-owned land.
The strategy, Cllr Bacon said, will be constantly reviewed and updated as technology and circumstances develop, undergoing formal reviews after the first nine months and then every 6 months after.
Cllr Bacon said working together with other council strategies, the climate strategy will form a matrix of what the new Alliance administration is trying to do, ‘pursuing the aims of improved health, improved environment and improved economic opportunity.’
Councillor Ian Stephens, deputy leader of the council, said it will be a challenge for the authority to tackle and would not be easy but they should go for it and show the Isle of Wight Council is a forward-thinking council, looking to do its little bit for the planet and a ‘hell of a lot’ for the people of the Island.
What a joke, carbon neutral, thats a laugh, keep developing over and that will increase cars on the road, again, more hypocrisy, what a stupid council this lot are.
They could start by refusing new housing developments in rural areas that don’t actively discriminate against the use of the internal combustion engine. A free blue external plug socket for your electric scooter/car thing should be written in to the human rights act.
There is no climate emergency, just a madness that has gripped the Western world. The cost in economic deprivation will be colossal, a reversal of so much that has been achieved in the industrial age. A new dark age, literally, is in the offing.
Sounds like the new council are just a bunch of self important wind bags like the old council. We are just a tiny island what ever we do will achieve virtually nothing just make life difficult for us. Global warming is something we are going to have live with and adapt to. What ever we do on our island would be so minute it would be undone in a second by the worlds super powers.So why dont you lot at county hall step down off your soap box and do what we pay you for.In the grand scheme of things you are not as important as you think you are.
To little to late this really is the beginning of the end
I quote “Apart from the most blinkered people”
Yet they are blinkered by allowing developments which will cause a rise in the carbon footprint.