Climate commission meets for first time

Tue, 06/02/2020 - 10:48

 

Croydon’s ambition to become London’s greenest borough took another step forward as the independent Croydon Climate Crisis Commission held its first meeting.

Building on the Citizen’s Assembly on Climate Change, the commission was created to help the council achieve its aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and help address the climate and ecological emergency the world faces.

The Croydon Climate Crisis Commission met virtually to decide how the organisation will run. The commission will oversee five working groups looking into specific areas.

The working groups will focus on:

  • Housing, built environment and planning
  • Transport and energy
  • Adaptation and resilience
  • Skills, jobs and development
  • Awareness, engagement and communication

Each working group will be chaired by a member of the commission and use the feedback from the citizens’ assembly as a starting to point to create a detailed action plan.

The plans will be fed back to the commission to create a list of priority actions for the council to address. The meeting heard residents would have a variety of different opportunities to feed into the programme with details to be announced in due course.

The meeting also discussed the impact of the Coronavirus crisis on its plans, and commissioners restated their resolve to ensure that climate action actively contributes to the local crisis-recovery effort, putting climate-friendly jobs, and fairness at its heart.

The commission chair, Miatta Fahnbulleh, CEO of New Economics Foundation, said:

“It was fantastic to see the commission meet formally for the first time and connect the wealth of experience and knowledge the commissioners possess. The commission will work to drive a rapid reduction in carbon emissions across Croydon in a fair and just way so everyone can benefit from creating a greener Croydon.”