Agenda item

The Cabinet considered a report the Corporate Director of Neighbourhoods and Climate Change which provided a final update on progress of the Council’s Climate Emergency Response Plan (CERP2). The report also presented the third Climate Emergency Response Plan for the period 2024-27 (CERP3) and sought agreement to its adoption (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

In moving the report Councillor M Wilkes, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Neighbourhoods and Climate Change advised that substantial progress had been made in since the Councils emergency declaration in 2019, to create a cleaner, greener future in County Durham.  The Council would continue to seek nature-based solutions and those that benefitted both carbon reduction and ecological recovery efforts.  CERP2 focused on key themes and individual areas to address, each one with a costed action plan.  Each section also included an ask of Government; to make net zero a priority and follow it up with funding and legislative backing in order to enable the Council to deliver global ambitions. 

Councillor T Henderson, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People’s Services, seconded the recommendation.  He confirmed that funding was critical to success, however available national funding was short term and longer term strategic funding was required, to move to a low carbon economy and deliver significant and long lasting change.

Resolved:

That the recommendations in the report be approved.