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Council must do better - Ford

Aberdeenshire Council is failing to meet its own targets on sustainability and cutting greenhouse gas emissions, new figures show. The Council will not achieve the reductions in carbon emissions required by legislation unless it dramatically improves its performance.

Aberdeenshire councillor Martin Ford has criticised the Council's environmental performance as "clearly nowhere near good enough".
      
Figures compiled by the Council as part of its monitoring of its Sustainability Charter commitments reveal:

  • Energy consumption in Council buildings has increased in each of the last three years (180,617,786 kWh in 2007/08; 180,646,224 kWh in 2008/09; 183,317,802 kWh in 2009/10).
  • Increased fuel use by Council vehicles but a small decrease in business mileage claims from staff (councillors' total mileage claims however increased by 0.7 per cent in 2009/10 compared with 2008/09).
  • Increased carbon dioxide emissions from Council buildings.

Commenting, Cllr Martin Ford said: "Data collected by the Council to report on its environmental record show the Council is not living up to its own environmental promises. While it is clear considerable effort is being put into training and awareness raising, the Council's actual performance is getting worse. Energy and fuel use have increased, carbon emissions have gone up.
     
"There will certainly have been an effect on last year's figures from the hard winter. The data collected since 2007 however show that the poor performance is not confined to last year. At best, the Council is standing still. Generally, there is a trend in the wrong direction. There is absolutely no sign the Council is capable of delivering the year-on-year cuts in emissions that will be required under the Climate Change Act. Nor is there any sign that the Council's leadership has the faintest idea how to bring the Council's performance up to the required standard."

Green MSP Patrick Harvie said: "There's simply no excuse for councils to be wasting money on needlessly high energy bills or ignoring the threat to people's lives and livelihoods from climate change. Aberdeenshire, like every other Council in Scotland, would be able to provide a far better service to the public if it got its own house in order rather than waiting to be forced into action by law."
            
To meet the national target of a 42% cut in emissions by 2020, an annual 3 per cent cut in carbon emissions is necessary. At last Friday's meeting of Aberdeenshire Council's Sustainability Sub-Committee (27 August), Cllr Martin Ford pressed for additional measures to be included in the Council's Climate Change Action Plan 2010-12 to secure a 4 per cent cut in the Council's emissions next year.
    
Last year, Aberdeenshire councillors voted not to take part in the 10:10 national campaign to cut carbon emissions.
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