Campaigners accuse Derbyshire County Council administration of ignoring climate change risks

Derby and Derbyshire Climate Coalition Campaigners at Derbyshire County Council's County Hall, in Matlock. Taken By BBC LDR Jon Cooper.

Dozens of campaigners held a protest outside Derbyshire County Council urging the authority to readopt a Climate Change Strategy after the Reform UK administration scrapped its original plans in favour of an environmental approach.

The Derbyshire Climate Coalition organised the protest outside the council’s County Hall, in Matlock, on October 7th, before a Full Council meeting, where campaigner Lisa Hopkinson questioned how the council can be taking climate change seriously when it does not acknowledge the issue with relevant terminology in its new plans.

However, the council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, Cllr Carol Wood, defended the authority’s alternative Environmental Sustainability Strategy as a ‘much more common sense based’ environmental approach after the authority scrapped its Climate Change committee last year and de-prioritised net zero carbon reduction targets.

Cllr Wood told the meeting: “Our old Climate Change Strategy evolved into a much more common sense based locally relevant Environmental Sustainability Strategy for Derbyshire residents and I would encourage you all to read it. Have you read it? I wonder?

“Alongside that I am proud to say that Derbyshire County Council led on the creation of the LNRS, Derbyshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy, which is now in its implementation stage.

“The LNRS sets out our vision for restoring and enhancing nature across the county. We developed the strategy with a collaboration and support of a large number of partners and stakeholders including environmental organisations, local authorities, farmers and landowners and members of the public across the county.”

Cllr Wood argued that the LNRS sets out priorities and opportunities to help nature and it supports national ambitions for nature recovery and she argued that it is the environment and landscape that will help mitigate against problems like flooding.

She urged the campaigners to look through the strategy and see where they might feel they could engage to deliver climate resilience and mitigation measures.

However, the campaigners claim the council is not taking climate change seriously after it has not included terminology like ‘climate change’, ‘net zero’ and ‘reneweables’ in its Environmental Sustainability Strategy.

They also accused Council Leader, Cllr Alan Graves, of stating that he does not agree climate change is ‘man-made’ and that the UK is responsible for less than one percent of the world’s global environmental problems.

Ms Hopkinson, of the Derbyshire Climate Coalition, told the meeting: “The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, the chartered body for professionals who measure and analyse and manage financial risk, have said that the global economy could face a 50percent loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 unless immediate policy action on risk posed by the crisis is taken.”

She added: “So how can you demonstrate you are taking climate risk seriously when you scrap the strategy and you won’t even acknowledge climate change in any of your strategies?”

Campaigners raised concerns after highlighting the summer’s heatwave, which they say included the hottest temperatures on record, and the Tintwistle Moor wildfire which burned for two months, as well as Storm Babet and its floods in 2023.

Ms Hopkinson said: “We are appalled that our council is denying the science on climate change and not acting to reduce carbon emissions in order to protect Derbyshire from the devastating consequences of climate change.

“Heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods are already severely affecting people’s health, lives and livelihoods. These will all increase in frequency and severity due to climate change.

“Why isn’t the council listening to the concerns of local people, the majority of whom are concerned about climate change and want their council to act?”

One campaigner questioned what mitigations the council is putting in place after the Tintwistle Moor wildfires to which Cllr Wood explained that the LNRS will provide opportunities for stakeholders including landowners to bring ideas forward so risks including fires, extreme heat and flooding can be addressed.

Cllr Wood said: “The Environmental Sustainability Strategy speaks for itself but it’s a strategy. As a project manager there is a difference between a strategy and a plan.

“The LNRS is another vehicle under which we are engaging farmers, landowners, community groups, communities, even the public, who can bring forth their ideas and actual plans to drive forward into implementation.”

The council’s opposition Green Party, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Independent groups all supported the importance of the council recognising climate change with concerns for protecting the environment and addressing carbon emissions, fossil fuels and extreme weather events.

Conservative councillor Wayne Major agreed climate change is affecting the weather and there is a need to move away from fossil fuels and to rely on ‘human ingenuity’ and to unlock better engineering and that the focus has to be on Derbyshire’s environment and fixing things the council has control over.

Green Party Cllr Rachel Hatchett said: “By rejecting the overwhelming evidence that climate change is driven by human activity, the Reform UK administration is denying reality.

“This is so dangerous because it leads to bad decision-making, poor oversight and a feeble response to an immense threat.

“After a summer of drought and wildfires and with the threat of severe storms this winter, we need a county council which shows leadership in finding solutions, not one which buries its head in the sand.”

Reform UK Cllr John Lawson said Net Zero is an ‘act of stupidity’ particularly to do it unilaterally because the UK produces 0.8 per cent of the world’s emissions and since 1990 it has reduced emissions by two thirds while China’s have doubled.

He argued it is a global issue and it has to be resolved globally and to try and do so unilaterally is the ‘very act of stupidity’ after it has impoverished the country during that timeframe.

Cllr Hatchett told the meeting, ‘it’s taken my breath away that there is such ignorance’, after she lost an outvoted motion for the Cabinet to amend the Environmental Sustainability Strategy to include ‘man-made climate change’ as a driver for decision-making with a Corporate Carbon Reduction Action Plan and a public consultation.

Council Leader, Cllr Graves, said: “A statement does not plant a tree. It does not insulate a single home. It does not clear a single flooded road.

“This strategy is about what the council can actually do. Cleaner air, less waste, warmer homes and lower energy bills, better access to our countryside, communities ready for floods in extreme weather.”

Richard Dyer, Regional Coordinator for Friends of the Earth, said councils have direct influence over carbon emissions in their areas and can act to reduce them through planning, local leadership, and how services are delivered.

He added: “Not only does this create green jobs and benefit the local economy, cutting emissions can provide health, social and other benefits too. Given the UK’s large historical contribution to current levels of global warming the council has a responsibility to act on climate change.”