CROYDON IN CRISIS: ‘The council declared a climate emergency in 2019, but where’s the emergency response? This is a fight for survival, not a PR exercise.’ That’s according to one resident who wants to ask some pointed questions at next week’s Town Hall meeting
Croydon’s failed Mayor, Jason Perry, is to face questions at the Town Hall next week demanding to know why his council is dragging its feet over its commitments to achieving Net Zero, and has failed to deliver even modest environmental measures for this borough to do its bit to try to reduce the impact of the climate emergency.
Doing nothing is not an option: protesters have taken their ‘AMOC bomb’ around London to warn of the climate disaster
Almost £4million-worth of grants allocated to Croydon in 2016, to be used to offset the borough’s carbon emissions, remains unspent.
Today, protestors from across the capital dropped an “AMOC Bomb” outside City Hall, to draw attention to an impending climate disaster which threatens to end the Gulf Stream effect which has given the British Isles the typically mild and damp climate conditions which in the past made this part of Europe a relatively agreeable, and productive, place to live.
Environmentalists consider that too little is being done to avert this potential disaster, which could see southern England’s climate cool by an average of 5°, making the region more like Alaska, with some heralding “a new ice age”.
“Colder, drier conditions would largely wipe out crop growing in the British Isles,” the National Preparedness Commission warned last November.
The research findings and evidence are mounting that decades of global warming is having a real, and potentially catastrophic, impact on our climate.
The blue blob: how cold water from melting glaciers in Greenland could impact the Gulf Stream and impact climate on both sides of the Atlantic
While almost the entire world has been warming up over the past 100 years or so, waters off the coast of Greenland have been getting colder.
According to an article in The Times, “Climate scientists call it the ‘cold blob’. You might think that being close to it would suit Britain as the world warms. Perhaps it could keep our weather pleasantly mild, even as surrounding continents swelter in record-breaking heat.
“Unfortunately, the physics of climate change may not prove so forgiving. Scientists think the cold blob could spell danger for Britain, putting it in the crosshairs of one of the worst disasters climate change might inflict on the planet.”
AMOC is the “Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation”, which brings warm sea water from the Gulf of Mexico up towards Britain and north-western Europe. AMOC was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.
In a Doomsday scenario, scientists are warning that AMOC has weakened by around 15% and is in danger of collapsing altogether because of climate change.
The cause is the melting glaciers of Greenland. Fresh water is flowing from melting ice into the North Atlantic, and this “cold blob” is disrupting the process that drives the Gulf Stream towards Europe.
Last November, the National Preparedness Commission (an independent body whose role is to help Britain be significantly better prepared to avoid, mitigate, respond to, and recover from all kinds of major shocks, threats and challenges) published a report on AMOC collapse that warned of the consequences. AMOC collapse would impact global food production, so coupled with the loss of domestic agriculture production, Britain’s food supplies would be reduced by around 90%.
Around 30 people were expected at this morning’s protest outside City Hall, including scientists who describe AMOC collapse as the country’s “No1 National Security threat”.
Answering questions: Zack Polanski was one of only three out of 25 LAMs to respond to the AMOC email
Jon Fuller, one of the campaigners behind this morning’s protest, described the possibility of AMOC collapse as “a threat so great it could kill virtually everyone in London”.
Climate models show that the tipping point that makes an AMOC shutdown inevitable is likely to be passed within a few decades but that the collapse itself may not happen until 50 to 100 years later.
Fuller says that in July this year, all 25 London Assembly Members were emailed and asked to be ready to prove what they did when alerted to an unprecedented threat to the lives of everyone in London. He got replies from only three LAMs – the Green Party’s Zoe Garbett, Caroline Russell and Zack Polanski, recently elected as his party’s national leader.
Fuller and today’s protesters are calling for the British government to form an alliance with Ireland and all Scandinavian nations at the COP30 climate negotiations later this year to press for dramatically increased efforts to decarbonise. “Nations should reach Net Zero by 2035, recognising this will entail significant change to the lifestyles of wealthier people,” they said.
They also call on the government to sack Daniel Zeichner, the minister responsible for England’s food security strategy “for ignoring the unprecedented threat of AMOC collapse”.
If getting things wrong, or doing nothing, becomes a sackable offence, then Croydon Mayor Jason Perry ought to be handed his P45 today.
Croydon Council declared a climate emergency in July 2019, establishing the Croydon Climate Crisis Commission, chaired by Miatta Fahnbulleh, now MP for Peckham, when it promised to take “major steps towards becoming London’s greenest borough”.
Since when… not a lot.
It took the Commission almost three years to come up with its Carbon Neutral Action Plan, and another 18 months before the council employed two staff “to undertake the work outlined in the 2022 Action Plan and embarked [sic] on a discovery exercise of the Carbon Neutral Action Plan”. Oh yeah! A discovery exercise no less.
And now? “Currently the plan is being updated.”
“A refresh of the Carbon Neutral Action Plan is scheduled to be published in 2025-2026,” according to our dynamic council. Whether they will rename it, in the interests of accuracy, as the Carbon Neutral Inaction Plan remains to be seen.
Flat-lining: Croydon Council’s own figures show that no real progress inreducing emissions has been made in five years
It’s not even as if the cash-strapped council has to spend money on this. The Mayor of London has given Croydon a £5million carbon offset fund.
Yet Croydon has spent barely £1million of that money since 2016.
Connie Duxbury is the chief exec of Croydon Community Energy, which is eager to access public funding to help expand its operations and deliver zero-carbon energy.
But she appears to have lost patience with her council.
“Croydon Council declared a climate emergency in 2019, but where’s the emergency response?” Duxbury told Inside Croydon.
“The threat of AMOC collapse shows this is a fight for survival, not a PR exercise.
“While the planet races toward catastrophe, the council still drags its feet on basics like renewable energy, home insulation and climate resilience.
Asking questions: Connie Duxbury
“I will be asking a question at the full council meeting next week, querying why the council has only spent 22% of its allocated £5million from the Mayor of London’s carbon offset fund in the past nine years, while other councils have used the funds for retrofitting council homes, planting trees and greening boroughs and creating community energy funds.
“As the most populated London borough, Croydon should be leading the way, not waiting for Westminster.”
And Paul Ainscough, a Green Party candidate at the Town Hall elections next May, accused Labour and Tory councillors in Croydon of “increasingly sidelining the climate crisis”.
“I want to know what Croydon Council has achieved since receiving the Croydon Climate Crisis Commission recommendations in March 2021,” Ainscough said today.
“I believe that despite the best efforts of Green councillors and several council officers, very little has been implemented because both Labour and the Conservatives are increasingly sidelining the climate crisis.”
Croydon’s £84,000 per year Mayor, Jason Perry, has meanwhile spent most of this week with his climate change-denying chums at the Conservative Party annual conference.
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