Showing posts with label pandemic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pandemic. Show all posts

Wednesday 7 July 2021

Brent Lead Members answer some pertinent questions from councillors on support for pandemic's financial victims, climate action, tackling poverty and access to Recycling Centre after ULEZ expansion

Questions to Cabinet members from opposition councillors and non-Cabinet members are sometimes worth reading, although there are so few opposition councillors they tend to be 'friendly' questions enabling lead members to showcase their achievements.  These are the questions tabled for Monday's Full Council and the full answers are in the document posted below. Remember click bottom right for full page.

1.    Question from Councillor Parvez Ahmed to Councillor Margaret McLennan, Deputy Leader:

 

Can the Deputy Leader set out what is being done to support those of this borough’s residents whose financial situations have been hardest hit by the pandemic? Likewise, can the Deputy Leader explain what steps this council is taking to help the types of small businesses that local economies like Brent’s depend upon?

 

2.   Question from Councillor Orleen Hylton to Councillor Krupa Sheth, Lead Member for Environment:

 

In July 2019, Brent Council declared a climate and ecological emergency and committed to do all in its gift to strive for carbon neutrality by 2030. In light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the current efforts towards recovery, can the Cabinet Member for Environment set out how Brent’s efforts to build back better will help deliver on this borough’s climate commitments?

 

3.   Question from Councillor Gwen Grahl to Councillor Eleanor Southwood, Lead Member for Housing & Welfare Reform:

 

Can the Cabinet Member for Housing and Welfare Reform update on how Brent has so far delivered on its promise to tackle poverty, in all its forms, as so starkly laid out in last year’s Independent Poverty Commission’s findings.

 

4.    Question from Councillor Michael  Maurice to Councillor Krupa Sheth, Lead Member for Environment:

 

From 25 October 2021, the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ)is expanding from central London to create a single, larger zone up to the A406 North Circular Road. Petrol cars registered before 2006 and diesel cars registered before 2015 are likely to incur a £12.50 daily charge should they travel into the ULEZ area. This means that Brent residents living north of the North Circular Road with an older vehicle will incur a charge should they use the Household Waste and Recycling Centre situated at Abbey Road. This will impact those on low incomes disproportionately and potentially result in an increase of fly tipping. Will this Council make representations to Transport for London and the Mayor of London seeking an exemption from the charge for Brent residents legitimately using the HWRC. Alternatively, will the Council request that Brent residents living north of the zone be allowed to utilise Harrow Council’s facility at Forward Drive, thus avoiding the requirement to enter the ULEZ area? A map has been attached for further background


 

Saturday 21 November 2020

Act now to invest in nature or face biodiversity collapse and further pandemics, ‘Wildlife Conservation 20’ warns G20

 From Wildlife Conservation 20

A new initiative involving 20 of the world’s leading conservation organisations today issued an unprecedented joint declaration to the G20 calling for urgent action to invest in nature to protect biodiversity and reduce the risk of future pandemics.

World leaders gathering in Riyadh this weekend have an unparalleled opportunity to build into COVID-19 economic recovery long-lasting action to conserve planetary health and reset human interactions with nature. 

While the exact source of the virus remains uncertain, scientists agree that just like HIV, Ebola, SARS, Bird Flu, and MERS, COVID-19 is zoonotic: it jumped from animals to people, likely as a result of our increasing interaction with wildlife. 

The pandemic, which has killed 1.3 million people to date and affected hundreds of millions more, stands as one of the starkest and most urgent warnings yet that our current relationship with nature is unsustainable. 

Investment in nature - including ending deforestation, controlling the wildlife trade, and enhancing livelihoods of people living in or depending on natural landscapes - is not a luxury to consider alongside pandemic recovery, the WC20 said. 

Protecting biodiversity is perhaps the most important component of government recovery plans that will significantly reduce the risk of future pandemics and avoid similar or greater human, economic, and environmental harm. 

The cost of these investments is a fraction of the estimated $26 trillion in economic damage COVID-19 has already caused. By one recent estimate, $700 billion a year would reverse the decline in biodiversity by 2030. That’s about one-fortieth the cost of the economic fallout from the current pandemic. 

Much of this does not need to be new money. A significant proportion of this investment could come from redirecting existing harmful financing, for example in subsidies that encourage deforestation and environmental destruction. 

Investing in planetary health including directing climate finance towards nature-based solutions drives green growth and green jobs, and takes us a long way towards tackling the effects of climate change and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate. 

With lives and livelihoods adversely affected by COVID-19 across the globe, there is public consensus and support as never before for governments to act now to protect and re-establish a healthier relationship with nature.

This is the watershed moment that prompted the formation of the Wildlife Conservation 20, or WC20, uniting 20 of the most prominent conservation NGOs at the forefront of protecting wildlife and ecosystems. 

The WC20 represents the voice of this conservation community, which has come together to articulate the steps needed to seize this unprecedented opportunity. 

In a joint statement, the WC20 said: “COVID-19 has been a wake up call to everyone on this planet. Now is the time to value and invest in nature by developing sustainable nature-based economic stimulus packages that embrace a One Health approach and address long-term planetary health, food security, poverty alleviation, climate change, and biodiversity loss and work towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“That is why the WC20 calls on the G20 nations to implement greater investment in addressing this critical present imbalance with nature. Otherwise, the natural world, on which we all rely, will not be safeguarded for the long-term well-being and security of current and future human generations, and for all life on earth.” 

Ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit on 21 and 22 November in Riyadh, Space for Giants and ESI Media on 19 November hosted a high-level virtual summit of CEOs and senior executives from the WC20 to agree a joint declaration identifying priority actions for world leaders. 

“Covid-19 is a terrible, terrible reminder of what can happen if we don’t respect nature, and there are many other signs, in loss of species, in deforestation, in pollution,” said Dr Max Graham, CEO of Space for Giants. 

“This really is a watershed moment when public opinion is massively supportive of the G20 governments taking the measures needed to protect wildlife and the natural world. They can also act and know that it’s cheaper to invest in nature to reduce the risk of pandemics, than to deal with the awful economic fallout they cause.” 

The full text of the Declaration is available at spaceforgiants.org/WC20. In summary, the WC20’s recommendations are:

  • Policy and Implementation: Strengthen, sufficiently resource, and implement existing international and domestic legislation, and enact new legislation, to ensure the legal, sustainable, and traceable use of natural resources including wildlife, that no longer threatens human or animal health.
  • Law Enforcement: Scale up financial and technical support for law enforcement in key wildlife source states, transit hubs and destination countries/territories. Adopt a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach to help create an effective deterrent to wildlife crime.
  • Safeguard Natural Ecosystems: Secure government support, adequate finances, and technical expertise to effectively protect and manage natural ecosystems and wildlife so that they are valued and safeguarded, and become generators of economic wealth, and commit to scale this up to 30% of land and sea over the coming decade.
  • Support Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Recognise and respect the rights of IPLCs living within and/or depending on natural ecosystems, to improve human well-being, alleviate the pressures of human-wildlife coexistence, and reduce, halt, and reverse the loss of natural habitats and the associated wildlife they hold. 
  • Reduce Demand: Work with government authorities, stakeholders, civil society, and major influencers to inform the public about the dangers of zoonotic spillovers and how to lower their risks. Raise public awareness about, and reduce demand for, illegally and/or unsustainably exploited wildlife and their products.

These organisations make up the WC20: 

 

African Parks

African Wildlife Foundation

BirdLife International

Born Free Foundation

Conservation International

Education for Nature Vietnam

Global Initiative to

End Wildlife Crime

Environmental Investigation Agency 

Fauna & Flora International

Frankfurt Zoological Society

Freeland

Jane Goodall Institute 

Paradise Foundation International

Space for Giants

The Nature Conservancy

TRAFFIC

WildAid

Wildlife Conservation Society 

WWF

ZSL (Zoological Society of London)