Climate Change

Climate change is affecting every country in the world and as climate change worsens, dangerous weather events are becoming more frequent or severe and the environmental, economic and social costs increasing. The annual trend in global levels of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere continues to increase, with 2024 being the warmest year on record globally.

Protecting and improving nature and biodiversity is vital and provides us with many support systems and co-benefits, with the nature crisis and the climate emergency intrinsically linked.  

In the High Peak it is expected that we will have warmer, wetter winters; hotter and drier summers and more frequent and intense weather extremes. This highlights the need for immediate and urgent action and saw over 300 Local Authorities across the country, including our Council, declaring nature and climate change emergencies and committing to becoming carbon neutral. The Council declared a climate emergency on 15 October 2019 and a nature emergency on 18 April 2024. 

As a council, we have a responsibility to take meaningful action to reduce carbon emissions and improve nature - alongside preparing the borough for the impacts of a changing climate. Following our emergency declarations, strategies and plans were developed and now a subsequent Climate and Nature Delivery Plan: 2025-2028 has been developed to set out our priority areas for action.