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Consultation on protecting trees and woodland

DEFRA proposes  four new measures designed to increase transparency and accountability in the process of felling street trees and to strengthen the Forestry Commission’s power to tackle illegal tree felling.

Two of the measures introduce new duties on local authorities: a duty to consult on the felling of street trees and a duty to report on tree felling and replanting.

A third policy suggests the production of best practice guidance to support local authorities in drawing up, consulting on and publishing a Tree and Woodland Strategy.

The fourth measure is intended to give the Forestry Commission more powers to tackle illegal tree felling and strengthen protection of wooded landscapes.  

This consultation seeks views on these measures and their implementation and is open until 28th February

https://consult.defra.gov.uk/forestry/protecting-trees-and-woodlands/

If you don’t want to read the whole document, then perhaps make representations through the woodland trust website that has a suggested set of responses to some of the issues  https://campaigns.woodlandtrust.org.uk/page/36795/action/1?utm_campaign=2282329_B04_12624_Jan19Campaigning_190115&utm_medium=email&utm_source=woodlandtrust&dm_i=2D76,1CX21,8ZNDLA,4G981,1

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31 Jan: Presenting Reading Climate Change Strategy

Chris Beales (RCCP Chair) and Ben Burfoot (RBC Sustainability Manager) will present the Reading Climate Change Strategy, and discuss plans to adapt to the changing climate and to reduce our carbon footprint. These are hugely important challenges for our town and will be big factors in shaping the Reading 2050 vision.

Station Road, Reading

 

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Privacy policy

Under the General Data Protection Regulations 2018 you have the right to know what data is held under your name, what it is used for and how to get it deleted. you also have a right to request a copy of the data held at any time. If you want a copy of your data, want something changed or removed and cannot do it yourself, please contact info@readingcan.org.uk (climate.change@reading.gov.uk).

This is intentionally a information only website. We host the Reading Climate Action Network Strategy and information, weblinks and events associated with the activities of the Network.

We do have a mailing list, which you can contact us to join.

Otherwise, we do not collect personal information through the website. We have disabled the commenting facilities and we do not use any online forms to collect any of your details. Any personal information (e.g. names and photographs) will have been agreed by one of the website authors before being manually posted. We do not store any personal information in cookies.

This site contains links to other sites. The Reading Climate Change Partnership is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such web sites.

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Reading & Caversham Flood Scheme Drop in event on 6th December

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The Environment Agency is investigating options to reduce flood risk in north Reading and Lower Caversham.

Flooding in this area affects homes, businesses, utilities and a number of busy roads for long periods of time. We have been investigating a number of options, most of which include building flood walls and embankments.

The Environment Egency are inviting the residents to come to a drop-in on Thursday 6 December from 2.30pm to 7.30pm

Caversham Baptist Church, South Street, Caversham, Reading, RG4 8HY

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IPCC Special Report 15 – Global warming of 1.5degC

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The IPCC SR15 was released on 8 October 2018 with the strong messages that we have only 12 years to limit global warming to 1.5 degC.

“The report highlights a number of climate change impacts that could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC, or more. For instance, by 2100, global sea level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C. The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once per century with global warming of 1.5°C, compared with at least once per decade with 2°C. Coral reefs would decline by 70-90 percent with global warming of 1.5°C, whereas virtually all (> 99 percent) would be lost with 2ºC.” – IPCC SR15 press release

Consequences

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Figure from the IPCC SR15 Report, page 13

 

Particular concerns for us in Reading, from those issues highlighted, include:

  • Flooding
  • Crop yields – with impacts on food availability / cost
  • Extreme heat – with potential for heat-related deaths
  • Knock on effects from other parts of the world that are exposed to more of highlighted risks

Notice that global temperatures have already risen by 1 degC, and we are already seeing the extreme weather events associated with this level of warming.

Mitigation pathways

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Figure from the IPCC SR15 Report, page 6

 

It is sobering to notice that our current trajectory is to hit 1.5 degC by 2040. It doesn’t have to be that way though, and SR15 details how we can reduce emissions to meet the 1.5 degC target.

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Figure from the IPCC SR15 Report, page 6

 

Reflecting on this graph: there is a massive job that we need to do…not least to fundamentally change the political and economic focus towards tackling this.

  • Happily we have a start with the Zero Carbon Reading work that Reading Borough Council have done
  • There is reason to be optimistic about the UK (see Emissions pages (chrisbeales.net)) if we can regain our focus
  • Whatever happens though we need to get ready to adapt to the changing climate…and the less we do to cut emissions, the harder this is going to be.

 

Chris Beales, RCCP Chair, Oct 2018

 

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28 Sept – Reading Town Meal

Lunch is ready

Come and join us at the Reading Town Meal on Saturday 29th September. We are going to use this as an opportunity to launch our new website and the revised Reading Climate Change strategy.

Please do come and find us on one of the stalls. You can find out more about our aims for the next couple of years, and find out how you can get involved.

and there’s still time to sign up and help with this year’s meal. Can you provide some excess vegetables from your garden? help to collect equipment and supplies? help on the day? see the main town meal website  for more options and to sign up

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Tawny Owl Surveying: help needed

The British Trust for Ornithology is commencing two tawny owl surveys this summer to assess distribution.

The first, the tawny owl point survey,  starts in August and asks people to adopt one of many 2 km squares selected across the country, stand in the centre on two nice evenings roughly one month apart, and estimate owl territories. Reading is not on the survey, but there are many squares to survey around Wokingham (and nice pubs for afterwards)

The second one, the tawny owl calling survey, starts at the end of September and simply asks you to listen out in your own garden for tawny owls.

You really don’t need any previous knowledge to do either of these surveys as the instructions on the BTO website are very very clear. Please have a go.

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Government Consultation on Household waste duty of care: updating the guidance

The Duty of Care is the requirement for the producers of waste to take adequate care about disposal, such as not choosing a cheap contractor who will dump it in the countryside, or describing the waste wrongly.

This consultation is seeking views on the updated guidance for householders and new guidance for local authorities on meeting and enforcing the duty of care for waste

Closes 28th August 2018

https://www.gov.uk/government