Climate Change Consultation

Overview

Tell us what you think about our draft Climate Change Strategy.

Foreword

Climate change is the greatest threat to society. Its effects can be seen everywhere from the melting of the polar ice caps, to the devastating forest fires in Australia, to the floods that have ravaged communities here in the UK and the air pollution that impacts thousands every year including here in Southwark.

Tackling the climate emergency requires international co-operation, but it is also dependent on radical local action. Southwark Council has already acted to reduce our carbon footprint and air pollution, but we know we need to do more to address this challenge.

With our refreshed Council Plan, we are putting the environment at the heart of everything we do as a council. We are improving energy efficiency in our council homes, planting thousands more new trees, and promoting walking, cycling and public transport over private car use.

The climate emergency has been brought into sharper focus during the coronavirus pandemic. It has demonstrated the need for places and communities to become more resilient. It has also highlighted the major impact human activity has on the air quality and carbon emissions. There is now a window of opportunity to ensure our recovery from this pandemic is rooted in addressing these immense environmental challenges, one that is matched by our commitment to reduce inequalities.

Finally, our approach to responding to the Climate Emergency will be focussed around People, Place and Planet, this draft strategy will provide the framework for us to engage with our communities on our commitment to meet net zero by 2030.

Cllr Johnson Situ

Cabinet Member for the Climate Emergency, Planning and Transport

Overview

In July 2020, we published our draft Climate Change Strategy. This sets out the steps we need to take to meet our climate emergency declaration and become carbon neutral by 2030.

The draft Climate Change Strategy explains our approach to reducing carbon and protecting biodiversity in Southwark. It sets out the principles that we want to protect whilst delivering this strategy – inclusivity, transparency and ambition. It also sets out the actions we believe need to happen in different areas (buildings, energy, travel, biodiversity, and consumption) to become carbon neutral by 2030 and protect our plants and wildlife.

This consultation is your opportunity to have your say on whether you think this is the right approach. The full strategy can be found here, but this survey contains a summary of the key points and some questions to help us understand your views.

We want to hear from as many people as possible, from every part and every community in our borough.  Whether you live, work or play in Southwark we want to hear from you to help make sure this is the right plan for Southwark.

How has the Council listened to residents’ views on this strategy so far?

This consultation is part of a wider range of engagement that the Council has put together. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been unable to meet in person with large groups of residents. In place of this, we have been running an online engagement portal since May 2020 that has received over 600 individual comments. We have also been running focus group sessions with TRAs and community groups, socially distanced pop-up events in local parks and recently an online conference with around 200 residents attending and sharing their views.

We will gather all of the feedback we receive from this consultation and all our engagement to improve the draft strategy before publishing a final strategy early next year.

What happens next

We will gather all of the feedback we receive from this consultation and all our engagement to improve the draft strategy before publishing a final strategy early next year.