Tories in the Dark over Carbon despite Facing New Tax (South East Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats)

South East Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats <info@secambslibdems.org.uk>

Tories in the Dark over Carbon despite Facing New Tax

March 7, 2011 6:23 PM

Cllr Sarah Whitebread is disappointed by local Tories commitment to tackling Climate Change

Cambridgeshire Tories are in the dark as to how their decisions affect climate change despite facing a new tax on carbon usage.

They have decided to remove all mention of climate change from their Cabinet reports and have cut almost £500,000 from the climate change team.

These decisions come despite the fact that "meeting the challenges of climate change" is a strategic objective of the county council.

And they followed a commitment made by Cabinet members Mac Maguire and Tony Orgee at a recent Environment Scrutiny Committee meeting that sustainability would be embedded through the council and considered as part of every decision.

Liberal Democrat Climate Change Spokesperson, Sarah Whitebread said, "This is such a disappointing decision. The Conservatives are clearly not committed to tackling climate change locally at all. They talk of embedding sustainability through their organisation, but then cut the very means by which they might be aware of sustainability implications of their decisions.

"Their commitment to tackling climate change is now surely exposed as the shallowest of political gestures. Not only is this move bad from an environmental perspective, it's bad for taxpayers too. From this year, the council is being taxed for its carbon usage but the Cabinet will be making decisions with no knowledge of their affect on carbon. It's madness."