A Reform councillor’s bid to scrap West Norfolk Council’s climate emergency has been delayed because the chamber was too hot to debate it. Austen Moore had been due to argue that the authority should abandon its climate emergency declaration and instead adopt what he describes as a “Practical Environmental and Resilience Strategy”. But with temperatures climbing into the mid-30s and the Met Office issuing a rare red heat alert, the mayor postponed Thursday’s full council meeting on grounds of “comfort, wellbeing and safety”.
King’s Lynn Town Hall – a handsome but ageing building with no air conditioning – was deemed unsuitable for the meeting.
A Facebook post from the council said: “This decision has been made in the interests of the comfort, wellbeing and safety of councillors, staff and members of the public. The mayor also wishes to ensure that the environment is comfortable for councillors to be able to concentrate fully and make the best possible decisions.”
Climate debate postponed
The irony of a climate debate falling victim to extreme heat was not lost on Mr Moore’s political opponents. Simon Ring, the council’s Independent deputy leader, said the weather had “submitted its own amendment to the motion”.
“Postponing a climate debate because of a red heat warning is undeniably ironic,” he said. “It may be amusing, but it also reminds us that practical measures, like improving the energy efficiency of homes and making our communities more resilient, deliver benefits that people can feel today.”
The red heat alert covered much of eastern England as temperatures climbed into the mid-30s, with councils and public services across the region taking precautions to protect staff and the public.
Adaptation or net zero?
Mr Moore’s motion calls for the council to end the climate emergency it declared in 2021 and replace it with a “Practical Environmental and Resilience Strategy” focused on flood defence, water management and protecting farmland.
He argues the UK produces around one per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, that West Norfolk’s contribution is a tiny fraction of that total, and that the costs of “rapid transition policies” are hitting struggling households. His motion also says no strategy should force people “into choosing between heating and eating”.
The proposal comes as Reform-controlled councils elsewhere in England review or abandon climate emergency declarations in line with the party’s wider commitment to scrap net zero policies. The approach has prompted growing debate over the balance between reducing emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change.
Rather than seeing the postponement as ironic, Mr Moore argued it demonstrated exactly why resilience should be the priority. “I’ve proposed a motion to replace the current emergency that focuses on CO2 with a resilience strategy so we can make ourselves more resilient to the effects of climate change,” he said.
“We then must cancel full council because the room we meet in is not resilient in the least bit. So our current strategy is to stop working. You don’t spend all your money trying to stop a hurricane, tornado or earthquake – you create infrastructure that is resilient to as much of it as possible.” He added: “Imagine the story of Noah’s Ark if everyone had spent all their time and money fixing one leaking tap to prevent a global flood and never built the Ark.”
Climate emergency declared in 2021
West Norfolk Council – currently run by an Independent Partnership administration – declared a climate emergency under Conservative control in 2021, joining hundreds of councils across the UK that made similar declarations.
The move saw funding set aside for decarbonisation projects, the council’s net zero target brought forward from 2050 to 2035, and several council buildings retrofitted to improve energy efficiency.
Mr Moore – who was elected for North Lynn at a by-election last year and has previously been reprimanded by the council’s standards chair for attending a formal civic event in jeans and trainers – is now expected to bring his motion back to full council on 2 July.
This article is adapted from a report by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
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