County Durham
Climate Action Plan
Nationally, the UK has a legally binding target to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050. Many local councils have more ambitious targets. There are nearly 400 principal councils across the country: the majority have a net-zero target of 2030. Further information from the Council.
Local net-zero target date
2050Plan published
Plan scope
Plan covers entire local area
Climate emergency declared
June 2019Working together
If you have more recent Climate Action Plan information for this area, please contact mySociety at [email protected]
CO2 emissions
It's hard to visualise CO2 emissions. The data talks about 'tonnes of CO2' - but what does a tonne of gas look like? Well, imagine a typical large hot air balloon (almost 3,000 cubic metres in volume). One tonne of CO2 would fill one of these hot air balloons.
Additional local carbon emissions
Carbon emissions embedded in the imported goods we consume locally are typically not counted. However, these goods are produced and then transported here because of our consumer demands. Imported emissions are so big they should not be hidden*.
* Note: Imported emissions are estimated based on the Total UK Goods & Services Greenhouse Gases imported emissions (Defra UK's Carbon Footprint 2016: 353mt CO2 eq) pro-rated based on Local Authority population size and assumed equal per capita consumption of imported goods and services across all Local Authorities.
CO2 emissions in total
2,017,241 tonnes
People in the local area
533,149CO2 per person per year
3.8 tonnesAdditional local carbon emissions
2,805,670 tonnesSource: BEIS Local Authority territorial CO2 emissions within the scope of influence of Local Authorities (2020).
Local carbon emissions by sector
In getting to net zero as quickly as possible, we need to look at how we do things differently in every sector.
(000t)
High-impact, low-carbon initiatives
Total published on Carbon Copy across the UK: 1044 See all Initiatives
There are some amazing collaborations between local councils, communities and companies. Some examples in/around County Durham:
