In April 2019 Ealing Council passed a motion which said “Aim to make Ealing carbon neutral by 2030.”
In January 2021 the council published its climate strategy. The strategy was a substantial piece of work, with useful background information and estimated emissions from the borough of Ealing. There were however some major issues.
The strategy showed a graph of emissions declining from over 900,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum in 2020 to values of 870,000 in 2030 if NO action is taken, to 680,000 if Ealing follows its climate strategy and to 450,000 in the best case. These are HUGE differences. Also, it was not clear how the Ealing strategy could make such a difference since only a small proportion of emissions from the borough are under council control. We asked the council what assumptions underpinned the estimates. They were unable to tell us because the estimates had been produced by consultants!
The strategy had a long list of actions. But the effect of each action (in terms of CO2 emissions saved) was not estimated. This means it is impossible to tell what impact the actions would have on total emissions.
Fast forward to July 2023 when the first “progress report” was published. This is an attractive and accessible document with pictures and nicely written text. But it lacked any significant quantification and there was no attempt to show how much emissions had changed between 2021 and 2023 and what progress towards Net Zero was expected.
Ealing Friends of the Earth wrote to the council saying: “We have seen the ‘Ealing Climate Action and Sustainability progress report 2023 Update’. We regard this as a document for wider public communication rather than a formal review of progress. We would therefore also expect to see a technical report, as part of the council’s climate action programme, which reviews the emissions, achievements, targets, etc in the CEES [Climate and Ecological Emergency Strategy] document.” No such technical document has, so far, been forthcoming.
It is manifestly clear that the climate emergency motion target “Aim to make Ealing carbon neutral by 2030” will fail to be achieved and will fail by a huge margin. We have not, however, seen any statement that supersedes the aim in the 2019 motion or the estimates in the 2021 strategy.