January 7, 2020 4.38 pm This story is over 50 months old

Lincoln council’s carbon emissions on track for 50% reduction

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The City of Lincoln Council is on track to have reduced its carbon emissions by 50% by the end of 2020.

The authority’s leaders are hoping, however, that Lincolnshire County Council and Conservative MP Karl McCartney will carry on the work of a task force which fed a number of suggestions into the Lincoln Transport Strategy in the face of rising vehicle emissions.

Council leader Ric Metcalfe said following the meeting: “We’re committed to involving the public in a meaningful way, in a conversation about the actions needed to reduce Lincoln’s carbon footprint.”

Executive members were told on Monday that since 2005 emissions have reduced by 44%, with 30% of that since 2012.

How Lincoln’s carbon emissions have changed since 2005.

When the authority declared a climate emergency last year, it announced a target to be net zero carbon by 2030 – meaning it would need to “drastically reduce” emissions by a further 51% from 3.5t CO2 per capita to just 1.7t per capita per year.

The largest decreases have taken place in the industrial, commercial and domestic sectors due to changes in the fuel mixes for electricity generation and gas consumption – for example the decreased use of coal and increased use of renewables.

However, since 2013, the carbon footprint of transport in the city has been slowly rising again from 62.9 kilotons of CO2 per capita per annum to 65.9 kilotons in 2017.

A Lincoln Transport Taskforce led by former MP Karen Lee made a series of suggestions to the county council and Councillor Metcalfe hoped they would be taken forward.

Projections given to City of Lincoln Council executive.

“We’re very hopeful that all the work that we put into trying to put an emphasis on more sustainable forms of transport which means of course trying to reduce some of Lincoln’s well-known traffic problems and trying to encourage people to seek alternative ways, you know more carbon neutral ways of getting about,” he said.

“We would hope to get support from Karl with this agenda because obviously the government have taken on a target of 2050.

“We’ve got an earlier target of 2030 but whatever it is, it doesn’t much matter if we’re all moving in the same direction to try to take the necessary action to address climate change – the symptoms of which we’re seeing all too readily in Australia at the moment.”

The executive agreed to carry out a series of actions including a new roadmap, the creation of a citizens assembly and the preparation of environmental policies and strategies for the council, including Lincoln Christmas Market.

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