Surrey County County says: Reduce your carbon emissions

Surrey County County recognises that measured and forecast changes in our climate pose important questions.

Sharing the responsibility for the way work is carried out across the council is key.

In line with 20:20 policy from central government the council seeks to make Surrey County Council into a climate-resilient and lower carbon authority, working with others to enable communities and businesses in Surrey to act on climate change in their own work and lives.

Climate change is a real issue that affects all of us.

The scientific evidence from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is clear. Most of the observed rise in average global temperatures over the last 50 or 60 years is due to human activity through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels [and methane].

If we are to prevent the process of climate change continuing and becoming more damaging, we will need to find ways of reducing our CO2 emissions.

The detailed effects of climate change, globally, nationally and locally, are uncertain and continue to be the subject of on-going study. But informed predictions indicate that Surrey is likely to become warmer all year round, with most of the warming in the summer and autumn. Winters will become wetter and summers drier, and there may be more sudden and extreme weather events, such as droughts, heatwaves, wind storms and floods arising from torrential rain. It is predicted that by 2080, without preventive adaptation, there will be water shortages every summer and damage from flooding almost every winter. A hotter climate will affect agriculture and plant life, and expose both people and the natural environment to risk of harm from storms, pests and temperature-related illnesses.

We know that some climate change will occur whatever we may do now, as the result of emissions already made, and a shift in climate of the scale indicated will therefore make it necessary for us to adapt our infrastructure, including transport, housing and the economy, so that we can minimise disruption to our work and lives in the future.

Local governments across the UK are battling against old fashioned views that reducing CO2 costs money. We all know their is a cost it's how we get our payback after investment that counts and if that means sustaining life on planet earth, it's a small price to pay for CO2 reductions!