Cambridgeshire set to bring forward its net zero target date to 2045

By Hannah Brown, Local Democracy Reporter

Published: 06:00, 22 December 2021

The target date for Cambridgeshire to reach net zero emissions is due to be brought forward by five years to 2045.

A draft climate and environment strategy from Cambridgeshire County Council proposes the new target - although one member decried it as “lacking ambition”.

From left, Cllr Tom Sanderson, Cllr Lorna Dupre, Cllr Lucy Nethsingha, Cllr Richard Howitt and Cllr Elisa Meschini. Cllr Lorna Dupre and Cllr Richard Howitt at the signing of the rainbow coalition deal. Picture: Keith Heppell

The council’s own ‘organisational target’, relating to direct emissions, is to reach net zero by 2030. It plans to halve its indirect emissions in supply chains by the same year.

The draft strategy was presented to the environment and green investment committee last Thursday (December 16).

Setting out the vision for the future, it said: “We will live in climate adapted and zero carbon homes. Our lives will be powered with 100 per cent renewable energy.

“Our communities will be more resilient to the impacts of climate change and will have space for nature to thrive.

“Our health will be better and we will have easy access to sustainable, local, transport and green space.

“We will have a circular economy that provides access to affordable low and carbon products and services.”

The council, which is led by a Liberal Democrat, Labour and Independent coalition, plans to achieve this partly through preventing further emissions, via flood risk management and improving biodiversity and by tacking air pollution.

Specific areas of priority included continuing the transition of council-owned buildings to low carbon heating and promoting low carbon transport, prioritising walking, cycling and public transport, as well as supporting the uptake of electric vehicles.

Flooding around the River Great Ouse on December 24, 2020. Picture: Geoff Robinson Photography

Cllr Jonas King (Con, Huntingdon North and Hartford) said he supported the strategy because he argued it was “by and large” what the previous Conservative administration had “already put in place”.

But he added that he was “disappointed” that the opportunity had not been taken to do more and described the draft strategy as ‘lacking ambition’.

However, the chair of the committee, Cllr Lorna Dupré (Lib Dem, Sutton), said it was an “extremely ambitious” strategy.

She said: “There’s a lot of new stuff in there, there’s a lot more ambition in here than we had before.

“There’s the bringing forward of the targets, there’s the setting of the [biodiversity] baseline, there’s the working with partners both out in the community and also our volunteers and levels of local government, and grappling with some of the uncertainties we face.

“We know that the action plan will change and develop over time and that’s natural and absolutely right as we learn more, but I’m extremely proud and very privileged to be able to propose this document today for recommendation to full council so that we can have that fuller debate about this.”

The draft strategy will next be presented at a full council meeting where councillors will decide on whether to officially adopt it.

Cambridge East Cambridgeshire Environment Politics South Cambridgeshire Hannah Brown, Local Democracy Reporter