I am delighted to share with you a letter to the Eastern Daily Press authored by Andrew Boswell, an esteemed environmental scientist, consultant and advocate for climate change, who also happens to be a dear friend of mine.
Andrew is currently spearheading an important legal battle against Highways England, concerning their inadequate evaluation of carbon emissions and environmental factors with respect to several proposed A47 road construction projects.
This is a matter of great interest to the public, and I urge you to support his cause by contributing to his fundraising campaign through the link provided at the end of this article.
Dear letters editor,
Councillors should be told the truth and not spun with selected snippets ("Norwich Western Link branded climate elephant in the room", March 17th). When Tom McCabe said that vehicle kilometres will “drop”, he was referring to the Council telling the Government in its most recent business case that the NWL would reduce vehicle kilometres by 0.6% in its opening year.
However, councillors were not told that the Council also predicts, in the same business case, that the NWL will increase kilometres by 17.6% over the subsequent 15 years. And that building the three A47 schemes, which the Council lobbied government for, would further expand traffic levels over the same period.
Together the NWL and the A47 schemes would massively increase traffic around Norwich over the next couple of decades. The carbon maths shows that electric vehicles will not reduce emissions anywhere like sufficient to contribute to meeting either national or the Norfolk local transport plan carbon targets for 2030 and 2035. Put simply, the Council’s transport policy of planning for perpetually increasing levels of traffic has hit the buffer of available carbon budgets.
Honesty is needed following the latest UN, and IPCC, climate report from thousands of scientists this week which once again shows that humanity is failing to make the radical emission cuts necessary, risking dire near-term consequences, such as tens of millions more refugees, rapidly increasing species loss, billions regularly exposed to extreme heat, and triggering climate tipping points.
Against this clear and unequivocal science, it is extremely disappointing to read that a Conservative party councillor denied the science and these profound human risks in the meeting. Opposition councillors, like Cllr Webb, are with the climate majority of the population who now want radical action on cutting emissions. These councillors are on the right side of history and it is outrageous that the full facts of the traffic growth planned were not clearly presented in the meeting.
Your faithfully
Dr Andrew Boswell
Science-based climate litigator
Norwich
To support Andrew's legal cases, please go here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-road-building-wrecking-climate-nature/