2.3 Bath and North East Somerset has declared a climate emergency and has committed to providing the leadership for the District to be carbon neutral by 2030. This will contribute to the UK’s legally binding target of net zero carbon by 2050. There are three key priorities to achieve this:
- Energy efficiency improvement of the majority of existing buildings (domestic and non-domestic) and zero carbon new build
- A major shift to mass transport, walking and cycling to reduce transport emissions
- A rapid and large-scale increase in local renewable energy generation
2.4 The council’s Climate Emergency Progress Report set out the scale of action needed to meet these priorities, including that “new homes and development need to be being zero carbon or net positive carbon from now”. The Report was adopted in October 2019.
2.5 As part of this work, the council is seeking to update their adopted policies on climate change, including a net zero carbon construction policy.
2.6 There is currently a renewable energy installed capacity of 21.7 Mega Watt electricity within the district, which is below the target of 110 Mega Watt electricity set out in the Core Strategy Policy CP3.