Response to the article in the Shropshire Star

During a recent Shropshire Council meeting (Thursday 16th May) a motion was put forward that the Council should declare a climate emergency and that a date should be set for the Council to become carbon neutral. The opposition sought to amend the motion to bring the deadline forward to 2030.

In a ‘report’ from the Shropshire Star https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-birmingham-48233575?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5cdd8d96f32379065973d695%26Some%20councillors%20cautious%20over%20climate%20change%262019-05-16T17%3A00%3A48%2B00%3A00&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:7d0128f4-8736-4479-8119-f99813eb60e6&pinned_post_asset_id=5cdd8d96f32379065973d695&pinned_post_type=share my speech and subsequent interview was compressed into a single sentence.

For clarification, the point I made was that whilst everyone was aware of global warming, the science of modelling and predicting future climate change was not settled (and there is a similar case in economics for long term forecasts). Therefore setting an arbitrary deadline to achieve carbon neutrality was pointless. There is also a trade off for people in doing this at the expense of economic activity which was obviously not planned for or discussed. The people of the county of Shropshire have a below national average annual income already.

Personally I drive an electric car and use public transport to get to and from work. We can all do what we can through our individual moral actions. The UK has reduced burning of coal for energy production by 44% in 15 years and recently went 3 days without burning coal for energy https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43879564 (meanwhile China for example is building two new coal fired power stations each week). But as stated declaring a climate emergency and setting arbitrary deadlines without a plan of how they will be achieved at the expense of voters is not the way forward.

It should be noted that I did vote in favour of the motion but felt it necessary to point these things out to my colleagues and the general public.