We the undersigned petition the Council of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole to declare a Climate & Ecological Emergency and commit to become carbon neutral by 2025.

We call on the council to put in place an action plan to meet this target, and report back to full council in 6 months’ time, with specific commitments to:

· Divest all Council funds from fossil fuels.

· Improve energy efficiency & access to affordable green energy for local businesses and residents.

·  Tackle local air pollution, which has been shown to breach legal E.U. limits for nitrogen dioxide and threatens health. 

·  Reduce waste going into landfill, including food waste and disposable nappies, ensuring that all residents have access to food waste disposal and recycling facilities.

·  Reverse ecological habitat loss contributing to insect decline by re-wilding of urban and suburban spaces and incorporating wildlife habitats into all urban planning considerations. 

·  Tackling the plastic pollution crisis by aiming to create a community free of single use plastic and making companies fully financially and operationally responsible for collecting and recycling the materials they put on the market.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C, (October 2018), describes the enormous harm that rising temperatures will cause.  Limiting global warming to 1.5C may still be possible but will take rapid and far-reaching action from national and subnational authorities, the private sector and local communities.  This action would help build a fairer and more sustainable society.

Local councils have a duty to limit the negative impacts of climate breakdown and cannot wait for national governments to change their policies. A growing number of unitary authorities such as York, Wiltshire, Herefordshire, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Wiltshire have already declared a climate emergency and we call on the council of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole to be on the right side of history, protect their citizens and pass a motion to do the same.