Strategy to raise CO2 emissions in SW
As regular Blog readers will know the SW RSS is a hugely influential plan for the next 20 years - yet it 'fails disastrously' to tackle climate change.
Tonight at Full Council, Stroud's submission will be agreed - basically a formality as it has already been viewed by all parties and agreed by Cabinet. It has been great to see Stroud politicians of all colours agree that this plan is inadequate re climate change - an issue first raised by Greens - indeed it is particularly great to see other councillors talking out publicly on this. Cllr Barbara Tait (Cons, Painswick), the council's cabinet member for planning, for example was quoted in yesterdays SNJ saying: "We have already expressed our concerns that airport expansions would wipe out environmental gains made by this council and the people of the Stroud district. It is also inequitable to require local businesses to reduce their CO2 emissions only to see rises resulting from aviation."
The SNJ also quoted a spokesperson for the South West Regional Assembly saying: "There remains some disagreement about the impact of air travel on carbon emissions with the aviation industry taking action to reduce CO2 emissions. Of course, any shift regarding climate change also requires a significant change in peoples' behaviour, and currently air travel is expanding due to high demand."
This is plainly utter nonsense. The SW are encouraging air travel by subsidising it and doubling /tripling airport traffic. Government and the SW have to take a lead on this - good on Stroud for seeing the clear economic and sustainability arguments.
The Citizen also kindly covered a 500 word comment from me today re the RSS.
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