Issue - meetings

This report outlines the City of York’s commitments to the EU Covenant of Mayors (CoM) campaign, seeks approval for the Sustainable Energy Action Plan and provides a brief update on other sustainability work being carried out across the Council and the City.

RESOLVED: (i)         That the draft SEAP at Annex 2 be approved.

REASON:      To enable the Council to submit the SEAP to the EU Covenant of Mayors team.

                        (ii)        That the significant actions required to deliver a 20% reduction in city-wide CO₂ emissions by 2020 be noted.

REASON:      To understand the scale of action required to achieve this reduction.

                        (iii)       That the proposed revisions to the Sustainable Development Board, and the formation of a renewable energy generation task and finish group, as set out in Annex 3, be approved.

REASON:      To ensure that the Council can take an enhanced leadership role installing and promoting renewable energy internally and across the City.

                        (iv)       That the risks of delivering the SEAP, specifically the risk of delivering such challenging city-wide targets that rely on limited existing staff and partnership working to achieve them.

REASON:      To highlight the ambition and challenge ahead in meeting the SEAP and CCFAP, where co-ordination of action and delivery of projects is on a city-wide scale.

Members considered a report which outlined the City of York’s commitment to the EU Covenant of Mayors (CoM) campaign, to which it had signed up in December 2009.  The report also sought approval for the Sustainability Energy Action Plan (SEAP) that was a core requirement of the campaign and provided an update on other sustainability work across the Council.

The City of York was committed to tackling climate change through the creation of a climate change strategy and compliance with three separate city-wide carbon reduction targets, including the target of a 20% reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2020 set by the CoM campaign.  Another requirement of the campaign was to produce a SEAP setting out how the target reduction would be delivered.  Full details of the CoM requirements were set out in Annex 1 to the report and a draft SEAP was attached as Annex 2.

Action to meet other carbon reduction targets would be delivered via the Climate Change Framework and Action Plan (CCFAP).  The draft consultation CCFAP was currently being re-evaluated to take account of the Council’s decision to sign up to the Friends of the Earth ‘Get Serious’ campaign.  It was clear from the carbon modelling study that had informed the SEAP and the CCFAP that maximising the potential of renewable energy and energy efficiency in York would be vital to meeting targets.  A proposed approach and management structure to ensure a co-ordinated approach to this work, including revisions to the Council’s Sustainable Development Board, was outlined in Annex 3.  An update on work across the City to support climate change commitments was provided in Annex 4.

Having noted the comments of the Labour Group Spokespersons on this item, it was

RESOLVED: (i)         That the draft SEAP at Annex 2 be approved. ¹

REASON:      To enable the Council to submit the SEAP to the EU Covenant of Mayors team.

                        (ii)        That the significant actions required to deliver a 20% reduction in city-wide CO₂ emissions by 2020 be noted.

REASON:      To understand the scale of action required to achieve this reduction.

                        (iii)       That the proposed revisions to the Sustainable Development Board, and the formation of a renewable energy generation task and finish group, as set out in Annex 3, be approved. ²

REASON:      To ensure that the Council can take an enhanced leadership role installing and promoting renewable energy internally and across the City.

                        (iv)       That the risks of delivering the SEAP, specifically the risk of delivering such challenging city-wide targets that rely on limited existing staff and partnership working to achieve them.

REASON:      To highlight the ambition and challenge ahead in meeting the SEAP and CCFAP, where co-ordination of action and delivery of projects is on a city-wide scale.