Carbon budget
The Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) has a target to reduce direct emissions of CO₂ by 50% over the five-year period up to 2025. To achieve this, the Council has a target to reduce its emissions by 13% every year, for five years.
The CCAP also sets a carbon budget of 119,917 tonnes of CO2 for the five-year period of 2020-25, calculated using science-based targets. Within this, the carbon budget for 2020-21 is 31,080 tonnes.
Progress against budget
31,080 tonnes CO₂ – Emissions Budget 2020-21
10,346 tonnes CO₂ – Emissions to September 2020*
*emissions to date are estimated due to billing timelines; the annual report qualifies actual emissions.
The Council emitted 10,346 tonnes of CO₂ between April and September 2020 (the most up to date figure for the year 2020-21.) These emissions are associated with Council buildings, streetlights, waste collection, operational fleet and staff travel.
In order to stay within budget for the full year, we need to reduce the Council's emissions by 1,204 tonnes compared to last year; this can be referred to as an annual savings target.
The Council has implemented a range of energy saving measures since April 2020 and will complete additional improvements by March 2021. Collectively, these measures will generate annual savings of 1,031 tonnes of CO₂ (85% of the target.)