Big boost for Local Carbon Budgets campaign

Friends of the Earth has been lobbying for a nationwide system of local carbon budgets.

This is a budget limiting how much carbon dioxide every council area can emit.

And Secretary of State for Local Government, John Denham MP, has now announced a pilot project of Local Carbon Frameworks.

We spoke to him about the scheme and the impact of our Get Serious About CO2 campaign.

This is a big step on the way to a system along the lines we have been calling for.

The ten councils in the pilot scheme will get Government help to develop climate change strategies.

Several of the councils chosen were ones that passed a motion to cut emissions in their area by at least 40 per cent by 2020 as a result of work done by Friends of the Earth local groups.

And the impact of this work has been acknowledged by the Government.

When he announced the scheme, John Denham MP said:

I congratulate Friends of the Earth on their campaign which has helped build pressure from the grassroots upwards.

But while these Local Carbon Frameworks are a big step in the right direction, we think they can still be improved.

We think Local Carbon Budgets are still needed which limit the amount of carbon emitted in a council area and:

Are set in line with the current science (so that the targets are tough enough)
Apply to every council
Are backed up by financial and technical support for councils