[ Leading Cork to Take Its Place as a World Class City ]
It was live streamed via Cork City Council’s website, Facebook page and YouTube channel. The meeting provided an update on the climate action progress and initiatives by Cork City Council as the committee reached its one-year anniversary. Invited guests were in attendance, which provided an opportunity for the committee to engage both nationally and with civil society. These guests were the chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action, Brian Leddin T.D., and Theresa Rose Sebastian of Fridays for Future.
the climate and biodiversity staff experts into a more coherent and effective body to encourage behavioural change. It has invited many external experts to speak at its meetings, thus broadening the Committee members own knowledge base as well as promoting positive climate action among the entire Council and the local stakeholders. The ‘Climate Action Committee’ has greatly facilitated the development and adoption of our ‘Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2019- 2024’, which was adopted on 30th September 2019 and the committee continues to drive the implementation aspects of this strategy. The Committee is fully supportive of a future climate change mitigation strategy, which will help position adaptation and mitigation actions under the overall umbrella of a ‘Climate Action Plan’. All these plans and strategies include biodiversity and circular economy elements, as well as climate action, and use as a master template the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In October 2020, Cork City Council prepared an annual update on climate action, in keeping with its obligations under national climate action policy. To coincide with this, a special public meeting of the Climate Action Committee took place on Friday, 16th October 2020.
A Special Meeting was then held on 30th October with Minister Eamon Ryan to discuss Active Transport Infrastructure.
Some of Cork City Council’s highlights over the past 12 months have been:
• Becoming the first local authority in Ireland to set up a dedicated Climate Action Committee
• One of the first local authorities to declare climate and biodiversity emergency in June 2019 • Fulfilled a creative and comprehensive public engagement programme as part of the public consultation phase of the development of the Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2019- 2024 during summer of 2019
• Largest EV (electric vehicles) fleet in the local authority sector
• Large-scale pedestrianisation of city centre streets, in tandem with continuing improvements in cycling infrastructure • Currently one of the leading local authorities in terms of energy reduction as part of our 2020 national targets
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