Climate Change Forum
The Climate Change Forum was initiated by Northampton Town Council to contribute to Northampton's community response to the developing challenges of climate change. It's members are councillors, community volunteers and council officers.
Climate Change - that is, a warming Earth - in 30 words: "It's real · It's happening now (1000s of Scientists agree)· It's us (Human activity is the main cause) · It's bad (How bad it gets depends on what WE DO) · There's hope."
If you live in Northampton and you are interested in helping the forum with it's work, please write to the Chair, Andrew Stevens: andrew.ntc.work@gmail.com
Some of the projects it is working on are listed below.
Why has the council set up this forum?
There is now an enormous amount of scientific based evidence for the reality of a warming world, and the gases, such as CO2 and methane emissions, that are the key drivers of global temperature rise, are still increasing each year.
The effects of Climate Change will affect the lives of all Northampton's residents. How soon the harmful effects of climate change will significantly effect us locally is not clear, but there are many signs in the UK and around the world that extreme weather events are now more frequent and intense. On a national level these are already damaging some areas of the UK, and causing much damage and many deaths in communities around the world.
Athough it has relatively few resources and statutory responsibilities, the town council declared a climate emergency in 2021 and believes it should be doing whatever it can to reduce CO2 emissions by the council, the town's residents, businesses and organisations.
The forum wants to plan for the potentially harmful effects of climate change at a local level - such as dangerously high temperatures - and to research how the wellbeing of our residents may be threatened by the effects of drought or wildfires that could lead to food shortages.
Then we need to work out how we can prepare for these possibilities - such as growing more food locally, or planting more trees which can help cool the air in the town, especially in very built-up and tarmacked areas.
In short, we need to work as a town community to do what we can to both reduce the heating of our world and build our resilience to what is now very likely to be coming our way.
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Have you got a project that aims to combat the impact of global warming locally? Up to £5000 funding in support of local initiatives.
Every Journey Matters (How We Choose to Travel Around Our Town)
This is an 'Active Travel' campaign which hopes to encourage more residents to use walking and cycling for shorter journeys, instead of taking the car.
Breathe in Better (Air Quality in Our Town)
Find out more about air pollution, its effects, and what we can do about it.
ABOUT THIS WEBPAGE. The Climate Change Forum's webpages have been produced by the Chair of the Forum, taking information from various sources, and combining this information with some element of a NORTHAMPTON PERSPECTIVE. The source websites include those of the UK Government, other councils, health organisations, and national level organisations who campaign on specific issues, with mainly environmental and nature-orientated themes, along with journal articles and books by University academics who have a special interest in the environment.