Conservatives kick the Can down the road on Climate

At the latest Full Council meeting, conservative councillors rejected a motion put forward by the council's climate champion, Cllr Neil Gwynne, that supported the CEE Bill (re action on the climate emergency) which is currently going through parliament.

The motion proposed the council giving support to the bill as well as writing to local MP's Caroline Nokes and Kit Malthouse asking them to support the bill as well.

The Bill has amassed the backing of 100+ MPs, 100+ councils, 200+ other organisations and businesses.

During the meeting, the environmental portfolio holder stated that the council would not take a decision and instead placed an amendment to the motion that it should be reviewed by the council's Overview and Scrutiny committee. The amendment was passed by conservative councillors and therefore the original motion was rejected.

Cllr Neil Gwynne said: "The effect of the amendment was to delay any decision on the motion by months. Given that the second reading of the Bill was planned for 10th September, this probably means the decision on whether to support the Bill or not will become meaningless by the time it is made."

This (lack of) action shows a clear lack of intent by conservatives in not being genuinely interested in tackling the climate emergency, something that the Lib Dems would be delivering results on if we were running the council.