Green councillors meeting and the Climate Change Bill

This morning Green District councillors came together to develop our aims for the next year: what should be priorities?

Photo: John Marjoram had done us proud with a selection of croissants from Star Anise

Some excellent plans were mooted and research started to see how feasible the ideas will be - plus of course there was a hundred and one other items like.....follow-up on the Environment Strategy, planning regulations, the canal, Sustainability Appraisals, working with the Town Council, working better with other parties and more - most of this will be circulated to Party members for comment or discussion.

I've also had a response now from the Council re their submission re the Climate Change Bill - my comments are here - now need to see if they have been taken on board for their comments - most of the key points seem to have been made - but need to look more specifically at all the details.

The main point where there is disagreement I suspect will be surrounding targets - official Green party policy now calls for annual C02 reductions of "at least 9%" (Note our online policy documents - MFSS hasn't yet been updated with the results of the last conference).

Stroud District Council adopted the national Friends of the Earth target of 3% per annum - and deserve credit for being one of the first Councils to do so.

However FOE acknowledge that their original suggestion of a 3% annual target is now insufficient - they've commissioned a report from the Tyndall Centre which shows 9% is more valid - it seems they're being carried along by the momentum of the original campaign and find it difficult to change the goalposts. It is clear a similar situation might arise here in Stroud but consider the proposed Independent Climate Change Panel for Stroud District will hopefully be able to consider that when they first meet. Will give this more thought before responding.