Enfield Council is to join a growing list of local authorities across the UK which have made formal declarations of a Climate Emergency. Enfield's declaration, endorsed by the cabinet on Monday and set to be approved by the full council this evening (Wednesday), commits the council to becoming carbon-neutral by 2030, to stop investing in fossil fuel companies, and to maximise use of environmentally friendly products.
Cabinet members sign a printed copy of the declaration at the end of their meeting (Photo: David Flint)
To begin implementing the commitments a special Climate Emergency Task Force will be set up, made up of officers and elected members. It will be headed by the deputy council leader, Ian Barnes.
The cabinet took its decision at a meeting on Monday (8th July), at which it endorsed the recommendations of a report prepared by the Executive Director - Place. At the end of the meeting, all cabinet members signed a printed copy of the declaration.
The cabinet's decision will be welcome news to several local environmental groups which have been calling for a declaration and for fossil fuels divestment. They include school strikers inspired by Guta Thunberg, local Extinction Rebellion (XR) direct action campaigners, Enfield Green Party, and the Divest Enfield campaign. The role of XR and the school strikers was commented on favourably by some of the cabinet members during the meeting, and in a press release issued after the meeting council leader Nesil Caliskan commented that "The excellent campaigns led by organisations like Extinction Rebellion have brought attention to the desperate need for us all to redouble our efforts and make Enfield genuinely carbon neutral as soon as we possibly can."
The declaration signed by the cabinet commits the council to:
- Make Enfield Council a carbon neutral organisation by 2030
- Divest the Council from investments in fossil fuel companies
- Only use environmentally friendly products where we are able to do so
- Make our supply chain carbon neutral through ethical procurement
- Work with local communities and positively promote changing behaviours in Enfield to limit activities scientifically linked to climate change
Pressure on the council to make the declaration has also come from within, notably from Cllr Vicki Pite, who tabled a motion to declare a climate emergency at the January and February council meetings only to have it "guillotined" when time ran out. She has tabled another motion for tonight's meeting, which this time will be first on the list to be debated.
Cllr Vicki Pite, along with some other councillors, has been calling on the council to make a climate crisis declaration for some time. This is her reaction to the news:
Cllr Vicki PiteI’m very pleased and grateful that our Climate Emergency Motion was prioritised for debate in Full Council on Wednesday 10th July and will be the first motion taken.
Third time turned out to be lucky after all, especially as there had been considerable uncertainty about whether the motion would be taken following the surprise announcement of an urgent cabinet meeting to respond to the Climate Change Emergency. At the meeting, Cabinet members declared a Climate Emergency on behalf of the council and made a series of related pledges. We were a little puzzled both by the need for urgency, given that the motion had not been supported in January and February, and the need to declare on behalf of the Local Authority sooner than waiting to hear the voices of elected members, publicly, in debate.
But we will, now, have that opportunity and are, therefore, enormously grateful to Enfield Voices, Enfield Extinction Rebellion, to David Flint from Enfield Green Party, and to countless individuals whose voices were, ultimately, too loud to ignore.
We welcome the change of heart, albeit belatedly, and even more so the public recognition of the achievements of the previous administration in reducing carbon emissions - which must be built on now, as a matter of urgency. There is no time to waste.
We look forward to playing our part in ensuring that the expectations in the motion are fully realised and help to hold the current administration to account for its promises.
The case for local authorities declaring climate emergencies, and the ways in which they can take effective measures to respond to the climate crisis, were the subject of an online interview in which Francis Sealey of Enfield Voices talks to local activists from the Green Party and Extinction Rebellion - see the box below.
