Climate emergency declaration anniversary – where are we now?

This month marks four years since the council unanimously declared a Climate Emergency and here’s how we’ve continued to prioritise the environment in the last 12 months.

Since April 2022, we have:

• Planted 21,040 more trees (with the help of our community groups and volunteers)
• Installed a 1.1km flood wall in West Kirby to protect homes in the area from tidal flooding
• Trained our parks teams on eCargo bikes (bikes with capacity to carry tools and items) so our staff can cycle instead of drive for some of their work
• Made three of our School Street trials permanent to help make areas around schools safer
• Trained 91 more of our staff to be carbon literate

As part of the council’s declaration of a climate emergency, it also agreed a target to be net carbon neutral by 2030.

What does carbon neutral mean? The amount of carbon that’s produced compared to what is taken out of the atmosphere is balanced.

The changes the council has made over the last year have helped us to stay on track to meeting this carbon target but there is still more to do.

Some of our next projects will include...

• Completing the development of a Green Fleet Strategy so the council’s fleet of vehicles can be greener alternatives
• Adopting an Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy to help increase the number of public EV points around the borough
• Providing community grants for volunteers to deliver environment projects
• Developing an Air Quality Strategy and action plan to help reduce pollution

To share the role that you want to play in Wirral’s response to the climate emergency, visit the Climate Action Hub.