By Cllr Jason Brock
When the (occasionally) mighty Royals took on Man United in the recent FA Cup tie, one of the significant talking points – aside from the final score (focusing on the league, I suppose) – was the explanation to those many thousands of people watching on TV of the climate stripes adorning the sleeves of Reading’s kit.
For those of you not yet aware, the climate stripes are the brainchild of the University of Reading’s own Professor Ed Hawkins.
They’ve fast become an iconic and striking image, with vertical-coloured bars showing the progressive heating up of our planet over many decades. The stripes start off mainly blue, before turning paler, then mainly orange and red, before a deep shade of burgundy in more recent years. Climate data from 2022 sees another deep red line added to our town’s local illustration.
I know time flies, but it was only last summer that Reading experienced its hottest day on record – 37.6°C.
Across the country, reports of wildfires were commonplace, as were those of water shortages and hosepipe bans. As Professor Hawkins himself put it, “If you think how hot 2022 was, and then realise that those 12 months will likely be one of the coolest years of the rest of our lives, I think we will regret not having acted sooner on these warnings.”
Last Sunday marked four years since the Council declared a climate emergency on behalf of the community. Our aim remains that our town – and this is about all of us, not just the Council – must do its part by achieving net zero carbon status by 2030. There is always a danger when talking about carbon reduction that we linger on our achievements to date, which, to be fair, are not insignificant.
As a town, Reading has cut its carbon footprint by over half (55%) since 2005. That is the fourth largest reduction of all 374 local authority areas in the UK. The Council’s own carbon footprint (the carbon the Council is directly responsible for) has been reduced by 71.3% in just 13 years.
We’ve also been recognised as one of only 19 UK local authorities – and one of just 122 across the world – to gain Carbon Disclosure Project ‘A’ list status on climate action. This is awarded for bold leadership on environmental action and transparency, and it’s the second successive year we’ve achieved it.
The sobering fact, though, is that all of this is not enough. We need to continue to accelerate our efforts if we are to achieve our ambitious goal in less than seven years’ time.
The reason it was so good to see the climate stripes given some airtime on national TV is that this isn’t a battle the Council is ever going to win on its own. It’s just not possible without taking residents, businesses, and organisations across the town with us.
This is as much about awareness as anything else, and somehow convincing people to think about making some small changes in their lives which – when taken together across the town, if enough of us do it – will make a big difference to the overall picture, locally at least.
As a Council we will continue to do all we can to help people make positive changes, whether that is continuing to invest in realistic and sustainable travel options for people (such as through new segregated cycle lanes, delivering new and refurbished train stations, or further investment in our town’s fantastic bus service) or through the introduction of initiatives like the collection of food waste from the doorstep, which has helped push Reading’s recycling rate up to over 50%, having previously been 34%.
For individuals or for organisations, there are some useful ideas on how to make a small difference via the Reading Climate Change Partnership’s website at www.readingcan.org.uk.
Please take a few minutes to visit and have a quick read. As I say, it’s important that we all do our part – let’s leave the world in a better place than when we inherited it.
Cllr Jason Brock is the leader of Reading Borough Council and ward member for Southcote
