Woking Tories vote against joining the 10:10 campaign

Cllr Denzil Coulson reports from Monday night's council meeting.

"At full council tonight, Woking Tories voted against our Lib Dem council motion to sign up to the national 10:10 campaign to reduce carbon emissions "as close as possible to 10%" in 2010.

Their reason? They stated that Woking was doing enough to reduce carbon emissions. "How arrogant" cried Bryan Cross, one of our Lib Dem councillors lambasting the Tories for their failure to engage on this issue. As I stated in the Council chamber tonight, "if Woking is doing such a good job already on green issues, why not sign up to the campaign to go further?" I stated further that Woking loses its leadership on green issues by not signing up. If Eastleigh, who have even less carbon emissions than Woking can sign up, why can't we?

It was when I heard Tory councillor, Tony Branigan, stating that Al Gore's 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth was "a pack of lies" and another Tory councillor expressing scepticism about global warming, that I realised that Woking Tories are complacent at best on the urgency of tackling climate change and filled with climate change denialism at worst.

Unless we tackle climate change seriously, the economic and social costs locally, nationally and internationally will be greater under this Tory complacency on green policy.

It also shows that David Cameron's 2007 election slogan of Vote Blue, Go Green was merely a gimmick as the Tory commitment lacks real substance."