YOU recently reported a local Climate Emergency campaigner as saying: “we need to get ourselves on a war footing”.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) 2019 Progress Report to Parliament, published July 10, agrees.

The CCC concludes: “UK action to curb greenhouse gas emissions is lagging behind what is needed to meet legally-binding emissions targets”, pointing out that since June 2018, HM Government has delivered only one of 25 critical policies needed to get emissions reductions back on track.

The CCC stresses that responsibility for tackling the Climate Emergency rests with “…all levels and departments of Government, with strong leadership at the centre. The new Prime Minister will need to lead the UK’s zero-carbon transition from day one, working closely with First Ministers in Wales and Scotland and in Northern Ireland”.

What does this mean for us in Pembrokeshire?

1) We must demand an emergency review of all Welsh planning policy, especially to remove barriers to green energy projects.

2) The National Park Local Development Plan 2, which will dictate development until 2031, must be subject to late stage revisions

- greatly increasing Park projections for renewable energy generation;

- requiring all new/refurbished buildings to have solar PV installations and electric vehicle charging points.

3) The County Council Local Development Plan 2, which will dictate development until 2033 must be made fully fit for purpose.

4) As a county we must accept the need to fully exploit our wealth of renewable energy resources as our contribution to Wales reducing carbon emissions to zero.

Yes, there will be landscape impacts with clean energy, as there undeniably are with fossil fuel energy generation.

When the UK was last on a war footing there was massive development of airfields, radar stations, etc. and we surely all agree the price was worth paying.

As Sir David Attenborough warned, unless we alter our lifestyles and priorities now, landscapes everywhere will change beyond all recognition, with familiar flora and fauna lost forever.

ELEANOR CLEGG,

Clunderwen,

Pembrokeshire Friends of the Earth

foepembrokeshire.org.uk/index.php

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