​Bury signs up to global climate change movement

Bury has signed up to national and worldwide movements to tackle climate change and become carbon neutral.

The borough has today been praised by UK100 for taking its Net Zero pledge, which is closely aligned with the international COP26 Race to Zero ambition. New cities to join the campaign will be announced at the global Climate Ambition Summit hosted by PM Boris Johnson and the UN on 12 December.

Councillor Eamonn O’Brien, leader of Bury Council said: “Climate change presents a significant challenge to the health and wellbeing of our community. We suffered major flooding in 2012, 2015 and in February this year. This emphasised to us the importance of taking action and is why we were keen to sign up to the “Cities Race to Zero”.

“We must take responsibility now to protect ourselves, our families and future generations from the dangers of climate change. We have declared a climate emergency and we have set an ambitious target to be carbon neutral by 2038.

“We were the first council in England to propose a Deposit Return Scheme, we have pioneered SUDS using street trees, banned fracking on our land and the release of sky lanterns. In the next two years, working with City of Trees we will plant over 25,000 trees in Bury, and we are looking to build an “eco housing” development to showcase alternative housing.

“This target of keeping temperature rise to 1.5 Celsius, as set in the Paris Agreement, is a major challenge but we know we need to get a grip of this situation to protect ourselves and our families from the danger and disruption we could face.”

Cllr O’Brien added: “Climate change is a long-lasting and universal problem that will affect everyone and those most impacted will be our most vulnerable residents. It will be the young people who will have to deal with our legacy into the future and we owe it to them to take the drastic action required.

“The cost of not doing enough is high but the challenge we face brings a huge opportunity to improve our health, economy and our environment. I know that the people and businesses of Bury have the necessary spirit and determination to face this challenge head on and that by working together we can achieve the level of change we need to protect our future.”

ENDS

Press release issued: 11 December 2020.