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City council pledges to cut carbon footprint (From Oxford Mail)
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City council pledges to cut carbon footprint
7:11pm Tuesday 1st September 2009
OXFORD has been described as a leader in the fight to tackle global warming after promising to slash its carbon emissions by 10 per cent next year.
The city council is one of a handful of local authorities to sign up to 10:10, a new national campaign aimed at getting hundreds of thousands of organisations across Britain to reduce their carbon footprint.
The council will now draw up a list pledges, including insulating its entire housing stock and installing special meters that record levels of energy use.
Tonight, city councillors from across the political divide hailed Oxford’s involvement in the scheme, which urges everyone to take small steps to reduce energy consumption.
Labour’s John Tanner, executive member for a Cleaner, Greener Oxford, was at today’s launch and said: “I think it is a fantastic idea and one that everybody needs to embrace.
“We are doing our bit and we would urge people in Oxford to make those small changes and really help the city reduce its carbon footprint.”
However, the city council was unable today to give any figures about the size of its carbon emissions or how much a 10 per cent reduction will be.
The news comes just two weeks after plans for a £3m municipal wind turbine in Horspath were announced as part of a scheme it is hoped will create energy for 1,200 Oxford homes.
Green group leader Craig Simmons said: “Improving the city’s council housing stock with insulation is one obvious opportunity that has a significant savings potential, as has improvement of the Town Hall’s energy efficiency.
“By signing up to the 10:10 campaign the council is making a very public commitment to tackle its own carbon footprint and establishing itself in a leadership position.”
In July, climate change Secretary Ed Miliband said Oxford was becoming “the green capital of Britain” for the way it encouraged community-based eco projects.
Liberal Democrat city councillor Alan Armitage said: “I think 10:10 is a very important scheme, which should be backed by everybody. We all have a responsibility to reduce our carbon emissions.”
Deputy city council leader Ed Turner said: “It is absolutely vital everybody plays their part and I think councils have a particular duty to lead the way.”
A spokesman for the 10:10 campaign said: “Cutting emissions by 10 per cent in one year is a bold target, but for most of us it’s an achievable one and is in line with what scientists say we need over the next 18 months.
“Unless we act quickly, humanity will face terrible problems. It’s now or never for the climate.”
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Your Say YourOxford
Lord Palmerston, Weston Turville says...
7:37am Wed 2 Sep 09
Whopper w/Cheese, B.K. says...
8:19am Wed 2 Sep 09
Sid Hunt, says...
10:21am Wed 2 Sep 09
Concerned one, Oxford says...
2:09pm Wed 2 Sep 09
'A spokesman for the 10:10 campaign said: “Cutting emissions by 10 per cent in one year is a bold target'
So the council does not have any figures about the size of its carbon emissions yet they can say cutting them by 10% is a bold target!
Why don't they concentrate first on cutting our council tax?
Grundon Skipp, Oxford says...
6:18pm Wed 2 Sep 09
And please stop chopping trees down to send me a full colour brochure with information I could find on a website interspersed with PR and spin about what a great job the Council are doing.
The slogan 'Your Council Tax Working For You!' must surely be in breach of Advertising Standards?
Heli, Oxford says...
1:02pm Sat 5 Sep 09
What is frightening is when "elected bodies" - like Oxford City Countil - "sign up" to these religions on "our" behalf.
In the case of the 10:10 sect, just have a look for example at Brendan O'Neill's piece on the 10:10 mania in The Guardian, September 2:
'Unfortunately, the 10:10 campaign highlights the petty moralism behind environmentalism. At the launch at the Tate Modern last night, the artist Bob and Roberta Smith suggested that people who own a 4x4 should spend a "night in the cells". Another attendee said "it's immoral to be wasteful".
Other 10:10 supporters promise to eat less "junk food" and to take fewer flights....
There is a glaring disconnect between the scaremongering employed by environmentalists and their proposed solutions. In one breath they tell us we face the worst crisis in human history, one which will make "genocide and ethnic cleansing look like sideshows at the circus of human suffering", and in the next they tell us we can avoid this disaster by wearing thermal underwear instead of turning on the heat and going to Leon instead of McDonald's.'
Meanwhile, one can agree with Mr Tanner that the whole initiative is a "fantastic" idea - in the literal sense of "fantastic".
Green leader Craig Simmons, left, outside the Osney Island home of architect David Hammond and his children Miles, 13, and Faith, 17
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Andrew:Oxford, Oxford says...
10:56pm Tue 1 Sep 09