MEMBERS of Redditch Green Party have called for true leadership at borough and county level following the release of the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The report states that urgent action must be taken – by 2025 at the latest – or a climate emergency is inevitable.
And it’s brought a stinging demand for action from the local leader of the Greens, Claire Davies.
“The local authority has to be an enabler, particularly at county council level, but it doesn’t seem to have come up with very much at all,” she said.
“We need to be looking at the whole climate change situation.
“Yes, there are many things that we can do as individuals but if we group together we can do so much more to make a difference.
“We could have community power generation and things like collective air sourced heat pumps for heating.
“However, it’s the existing structure that’s stopping this and it should not be down to community groups to lead.”
The Leader of Redditch Borough Council Councillor Matt Dormer said that far from being a block on acting on climate change the authority was doing plenty.
“It is so wrong to say we are not acting on climate change,” he said.
“We are looking at getting an electric bin lorry, the entire maintenance fleet is being replaced with electric vehicles and while there have been delays with our new charging points these will be going in this year.
“There are new windows in the town hall, an air sourced heat pump is being installed and we are looking at solar panels on all our buildings.
“We’ve also received money from the government for home insulation.
“In fact we are looking at everything and anything to make this borough more energy efficient and to combat climate change.”
