Wiltshire Council’s Climate Strategy: ‘No teeth, no tangible goals and no meaningful targets’

WILTSHIRE Council’s Climate Change Strategy falls well short of what is required. That’s the view of Melksham Town Council which says the strategy has no teeth, no tangible goals and no meaningful targets.

The town council wants to see much more ambitious plans developed in the face of what is the ‘biggest threat facing the planet’ and has put together a series of proposals which they hope Wiltshire Council will incorporate into its Climate Change Strategy (see page 13).

They say, “The town council recognise that the climate emergency is the biggest threat facing the planet,” and it is “disappointed that the strategy does not have any teeth, no tangible goals, or meaningful targets.”

It says Wiltshire Council’s consultation, “appears to be an exercise where in effect we can only agree with the statements.  It is not clear what the consultation is trying to achieve, other than endorsement of the current draft strategy.”

In a letter to Wiltshire Council, the town council goes on to say, “As a county, we must work together to have any real impact in reducing greenhouse emissions.  Indeed, tackling climate change was identified by the town council as high on its list of priorities.  

“It is committed to review working practices and do whatever it can to mitigate the effects of climate change, reducing our waste and lowering our carbon emissions.  As an organisation we can make a small impact by adjusting our practices, but wouldn’t it be better if all stakeholders in the county of Wiltshire worked together to tackle climate change head on?  With a shared vision and ambitious targets?  We believe that Wiltshire’s Climate Change Strategy could be the catalyst to facilitate such an approach. 

“As it stands, the draft Climate Strategy in its current form does not offer or hint at such an approach. The town council would like to see clear measures in Wiltshire’s strategy, with the inclusion of mandatory, tangible, and meaningful targets.  

“These targets should be reflected in the emerging Local Plan.  The town council would also like to see central Government lobbied so they bring about meaningful changes to tackle climate change through the National Planning Policy Framework.

“The climate change emergency was declared in Feb 2019, but as a county, we have not made any tangible progress.”

The town council has made a series of proposals itself in response to Wiltshire Council’s draft Climate Change Strategy. These are outlined below. xxxx

The town council adds, “Climate change is a term widely used and it doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves exactly what it means to humanity.

“The real threats of climate change impact on temperature, precipitation, wind, human health is all caused by human activities. The result is that we are unbalancing the weather of the earth, the sustainability of the planet and the planet’s ecosystems are under threat.    According to NASA they suggest it is a ‘broad range of global phenomena created predominantly by burning fossil fuels, which add heat-trapping gases to the Earth’s atmosphere, leading to increased temperature trends described by global warming, but also encompass changes such as sea-level rise, ice mass loss in Greenland, Antarctica, the Arctic, and mountain glaciers worldwide, shifts in flower/plant blooming, and extreme weather events.”