Sheffield City Council has restated its ambition to become zero carbon by 2030 as it today begins to discuss the findings of a specially-commissioned report to tackle climate change.
The Council’s Green Partnership Board has been working with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research which has produced a carbon budget for the city. The report will be discussed at full council today.
It comes in the week when the city launched its Clean Air consultation with the people of Sheffield – and just weeks after the council became the largest authority in the country to declare a climate emergency.
Councillor Lewis Dagnall, Cabinet Member for Climate Change at Sheffield City Council has also pledged to work with campaigners to shape the city’s response to the climate emergency – and held a constructive meeting with Extinction Rebellion yesterday.
The Tyndall Report lays out a framework for how the city can achieve its zero carbon target: today’s full council is the first discussion of how that target will be met. The Council is also setting up a Citizen’s Assembly to help inform how the city should achieve its targets.
Although there is a focus on energy use and consumption in the report, the council is expected to embed climate change in every aspect of its work – from planning and regeneration to transport and resources.
The report recommends that, in order for Sheffield to make its fair contribution to global climate goals, the city must not exceed a ‘budget’ of 16 million tonnes of carbon emissions over the next two decades.
At current rates of energy consumption, Sheffield would use this entire budget in less than six years.
Councillor Lewis Dagnall, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change said: “By receiving the independent report of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research today, we are making a major step forward in our understanding of the climate emergency.
“We know the exact scale of the challenge – and that if we don’t change course, we’ll spend our ‘carbon budget’ within six years.
“Now we need to convene a jury-style Citizen’s Assembly, representing people from across Sheffield, alongside a Young Citizen’s Assembly, to guide us in how Sheffield can become a zero-carbon city by 2030 and not exceed our ‘carbon budget’ in the meantime.”