Emissions warning (From Daily Echo)

Winchester councillor issues carbon emissions warning

5:10pm Wednesday 8th February 2012 in Politics

Winchester City Council aims to cut carbon emissions by 30 per cent in four years.

TAKING all Winchester’s cars off the road for a year would not be enough to meet the city council’s carbon footprint targets.

That’s the stark warning from a city councillor worried about the scale of the challenge facing Winchester City Council as it tries to cut carbon emissions by the planned 30 per cent in four years.

Councillor Robert Hutchison told a council meeting that carbon would need to be reduced by between 200,000 and 250,000 tonnes over the next four years.

He said that worked out at 60,000 tonnes a year – but only 500 tonnes was due to be saved over the next year.

He urged the council to take a positive approach to reducing the carbon footprint and asked directly if anyone knew how many tonnes would be needed.

Council leader Cllr George Beckett said he did not know what a tonne of carbon emission looked like.

Cllr Hutchison said based on the idea of 60,000 cars in the district each producing three tonnes of carbon, this would still not work out close to 250,000 tonnes.