News / bristol city council
Council’s climate emergency action plan criticised
Bristol City Council has launched its new Climate Emergency Action Plan.
Decarbonising the corporate estate by 2025 while supporting the same journey for the whole city by 2030 are two main key points for this plan.
The council claims it is currently leading in heat decarbonisation, coordination strategies, and building resilience to heatwaves in the UK.
is needed now More than ever
It also says it is working on five major actions:
- The replacement of all streetlights with more efficient bulbs and a new operating system
- Using more renewable electricity to power its office buildings
- Spending £97m to make homes more energy efficient and delivering more projects towards energy efficiency
- Replacing two high energy consumption gas cremators with electric ones
But when mayor Marvin Rees announced the new plan on Twitter, questions as to why the council had neglected green spaces and urban trees quickly followed.
Bristol Tree Forum, a voluntary organisation that promotes the planting and preservation of trees in the city, inquired about the lack of planning around the existing trees and the further planting of trees.
The group has also proposed to implement a new ‘Tree Replacement Standard’ – a mechanism for calculating the number of replacement trees when others are removed for development purposes. It says that this mechanism aligns with Bristol’s declarations of climate and ecological emergencies.
Bristol City Council, in response to the criticism, has highlighted that their tree strategy is contained under ‘natural environment’, which also links to the Ecological Emergency Action Plan, containing all actions related to tree preservation.
Trees can be found across Bristol’s urban landscape – photo: Martin Booth
Another persistent issue in Bristol has been the lack of ‘articulation’ between different environmental initiatives, groups and corporations.
However the council insists its climate emergency plan is connected with the corresponding ecological emergency plan, and that multiple organisations collaborate on the delivery of the strategy.
A council spokesperson said: “The delivery of our whole One City Climate Strategy is in partnership with other organisations across the city.
“The plan outlines in each section when and where work is carried out with partners, that is the case with transport measures with WECA and WoE (West of England) authoritiesor even within food-related projects, where Bristol Food Network is involved.”
This piece of independent journalism is supported by NatWest and the Bristol24/7 public and business membership
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read next:
- Is walking a neglected mode of transport in Bristol?
- ‘How can we reach net zero when our public transport system is in shambles?’
- Inside a Just Stop Oil meeting in Bristol
- Tackling the big questions climate change poses
Listen to the latest Bristol24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast:
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
