In January 2019, Cornwall Council declared a climate emergency and stated an aim of “to achieve the target for Cornwall to become carbon neutral by 2030”. Fine words, although it always was an impossible target.
So what has the Council and its councillors done in the six years since that declaration, and now just five years away from its target date of 2030? The answer is, unfortunately, not much.
Like all other local authorities, Cornwall Council’s actual powers to do anything about bringing about carbon neutrality are limited. It cannot tax fossil fuel use, although it could raise car parking charges to discourage car use, but it consistently fails to do that. It could close Newquay Airport which encourages people to fly instead of either not travelling at all or using other less carbon intensive means of transport; but the Council does the opposite by frantically trying to promote (unsuccessfully) more air travel through the airport.
One thing which is within the power of Cornwall Council is to approve planning applications for renewable energy generation facilities such as solar power, wind power or geothermal. Each of those projects has a measurable and not insignificant impact upon the net carbon footprint of the county. The council has approved some of these applications over the past year, but has also refused some. The refused schemes will almost certainly be approved on appeal at a cost to the Council and a cost to the environment because of the delays in implementation.
Today, 10 July, the Strategic Planning Committee was faced with two renewable energy installation applications, a solar farm near St Dennis (PA24/09234) and a geothermal installation near Camelford (PA23/10067). The committee refused by 5 votes to 4 votes the solar application on the grounds of impact on the rural countryside. The committee found the geothermal application too difficult and did not understand the technical details and decided by 6 votes to 3 votes to defer a decision for further information!
It seems that the need to do something about climate change is not quite so urgent after all!