Declare a climate emergency and commit to the city becoming carbon neutral by 2030.
Why is this important?
The naturalist Sir David Attenborough has said climate change is humanity's greatest threat in thousands of years and it could lead to the collapse of civilisations and the extinction of "much of the natural world".
"We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe", warns the United Nations. "Urgent changes are needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty", says the International Panel on Climate Change.
Our Government is ignoring these warnings and is not on target to meet the environmental commitments it made in Paris in 2015.
Sheffield City Council should be a trailblazing Council like Bristol, Nottingham, Frome, the Forest of Dean, Scarborough, the London Assembly and the growing number of councils that are declaring an emergency and planning to quickly reduce their emissions. Declaring a Climate Emergency means acting as if it is an emergency by taking measures to reduce carbon emissions from both production and consumption as quickly as possible. We still have a chance to avert the worst of the scientific predictions currently being made but we must act now. Sheffield City Council is meeting on Wednesday 6th February and should declare a Climate Emergency before it is too late. It is vital the motion they pass sets a firm commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030. Please sign this petition, and contact your local councillor to ask them to support the motion for a zero carbon city by 2030.
