Date/Time
Date(s) - 21/06/2022
13:00 - 14:00

Categories

• Green Party

Stephen Gray outside Covemtry Council House

Green Party Councillor Stephen Gray has called for people to join him in a demonstration outside the Council House to demand Coventry City Council declare a climate emergency and engage community groups in the local climate change action plan.

This was the motion that Stephen put forward for the full Council Meeting next Tuesday 21st June, which he was originally told he could put forward, but was then told he could not put it forward after all. We had the same thing back in 2019 when the council previously debated climate change.

Declaring a Climate Emergency

“Coventry City Council notes:

That the impacts of climate breakdown are already causing serious damage around the world;
That 197 countries, including the UK, agreed the Glasgow Climate Pact at the end of the COP26 talks held in the UK between 31st October and 12th November 2021;
That the UK government’s Sixth Carbon Budget set in law a climate change target proposing to cut emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels;
That the West Midlands Combined Authority has a target of becoming a net zero carbon economy by 2041;
That an overwhelming majority of councils in the UK have now declared a Climate Emergency, and that around 80% of UK councils now have a climate change action plan;
That three years after we acknowledged (but did not formally declare) a climate emergency, we still have no climate action plan;
That grassroots environmental activists have protested about being excluded from the recent Coventry and Warwickshire Climate Summit and from the Coventry Climate Change Board;
That strong policies to cut emissions also have associated health, wellbeing, and economic benefits;

To facilitate the reduction of carbon emissions, Coventry City Council resolves to:

Declare a Climate Emergency that requires urgent action to make Coventry a carbon neutral city by 2041;
Create a robust climate action plan, which addresses both the council’s own emissions and emissions from Coventry as a whole, with the utmost urgency;
Actively engage with grassroots activists to ensure that the climate action plan benefits from their extensive knowledge and experience;
Use our unique role of community leadership to increase awareness among Coventry residents and organisations of the actions required to address the Climate Emergency;
Actively assist Coventry businesses, co-operatives, charities, and other organisations in obtaining funding to reduce their own carbon emissions, and to assist Coventry residents in reducing theirs.