Leader wants to scrap climate emergency declaration

The Conservative leader of a Leicestershire council has said he wants to scrap its declaration of a climate emergency.

Simon Whelband said Harborough District Council had been wrong to adopt the move in 2019 which later led to the authority setting a target of becoming net-zero by 2030.

Whelband had been among the Tory councillors who voted in favour of the declaration at the time, but said he now believed such language was alarmist.

Opposition councillors said the council leader was arguing against "clear" science and that his proposal was a "sop for the right".

Whelband said his view was a personal one and did not represent a change in council policy but he said he would explore ways the declaration might be rescinded.

He told the BBC he was a recently-elected councillor in 2019 and had voted in favour of the council declaring climate emergency to "go with the flow".

"We were wrong to declare a climate emergency in 2019 and pursue an arbitrary net-zero and the council should reconsider its position," Whelband said.

"Any formal change would have to go through the appropriate democratic process."

"The language of a continuing 'climate emergency' is alarmist, and setting an arbitrary net-zero deadline is the wrong way to make policy.

"It puts a target ahead of the practical consequences, costs and benefits of the decisions we take.

"We have made energy-efficiency improvements to council buildings which reduce energy consumption and save taxpayers money.

"Those are exactly the sort of practical measures we should continue to pursue.

"Where we can reduce the council's running costs, protect our countryside, improve the environment, reduce waste or make our communities more resilient to flooding, we should do so."

The Conservatives run the district council as a minority administration and Whelband acknowledged the party might not win a vote to change policy on climate change.

Green Party district councillor Darren Woodiwiss said the move would be in line with current Conservative national policy on climate change but said it would be completely inappropriate.

"It's a sop to the right," he added. "It's following a trend of what Reform councils are doing.

"The science is clear. We've had the hottest year on record and people are dying from heat-related causes and it is a fact that climate change is the cause.

"We don't want to be diluting important messages.

"It makes no economic or environmental sense to do that."

The council's Liberal Democrat group leader Phil Knowles said: "We need a degree of clarity on whether this is seeking to become local council policy or whether it's just kite flying for general discussion.

"We need all the facts because we have just had the hottest summer that many can remember and we have had problems with flooding and landslides all over the world with other things anticipated on the horizon."

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