| Climate change occurs naturally over long periods of time, however since the industrialised era the emission of large amounts of greenhouse gases have caused a global climate change with rapidly increased temperatures and an increased number of extreme weather events. The borough needs to adapt to climate change, which will increase temperatures overall and the risk of flooding, The principal cause of greenhouse gas emissions is burning fossil fuels to create energy, hence conservation of energy and alternative energy generation are being promoted by the Council to mitigate climate change impacts. Have a look at Your Runnymede to see what you can do to adapt to and reduce your climate change impact. Runnymede objectives and indicators Runnymede's sustainability objective is to address the causes of climate change through reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. The domestic energy consumption creates Carbon Dioxide emissions estimated as being 3.64 tonnes per capita based on a survey sent to all residents. This is a 2.17% reduction in emissions on last year, however Runnymede is still above average compared to Surrey and the UK. Runnymede actions The Council contributes to this sustainability objective through
an
environment policy, through ensuring planning policies in the
new Local
Development Framework cover climate change issues and through
enabling people to conserve
and/ or generate alternative energy. |
The BBC website has an basic introduction to the key issues relevant climate change. The Environment Agency goes into more detail on the evidence base as well as mitigation and adaptation strategies. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change develops detailed scientific models to assess climate change impacts that are used to influence high level policy. |
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