Climate emergency
Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing the world. We are committed to tackling this issue, and we declared a climate emergency in February 2019.
Quick links
Leicester’s climate emergency strategy documents
Our Climate Emergency Strategy and our accompanying Climate Emergency Action Plan for the period 2020 to 2023 were produced following extensive public consultation and engagement. The strategy sets out our vision for a carbon neutral city and identifies the key areas for action while the action plan sets out what we’re doing to immediately start putting the strategy into action. We review and update the actions in our climate emergency action plan each year. The action plan and our report on achievements up to 2023 can be found below.
We also commissioned a study to advise us on a ‘roadmap’ for implementing the strategy, which identifies the areas where we need to scale up action – with support from both central government and local partners – to achieve a carbon neutral city. The key findings are published below.
This three-year strategy sets out the initial stages of our journey to become a carbon neutral and climate adapted city by 2030 or sooner.
This strategy provides details of our response to climate emergency for the city.
This plan presents actions undertaken by us up to March 2023 and details of the progress we have made so far towards our Climate Emergency Strategy 2020-2023, in response to the climate emergency we declared on 1 February 2019.
This report advises us on the actions needed for Leicester to reach net zero by 2030, including the speed and scale of action.
We have an ambition to become a Climate Ready city by 2030 which means reducing our carbon emissions as close as possible to zero
If you have problems accessing or viewing any of the documents above, please email sustainability@leicester.gov.uk.
What is the climate emergency?
Human activity produces greenhouses gases, particularly carbon dioxide. These gases cause climate change, raising the average temperature of the world. This is already causing extreme weather, sea level rise and damage to nature. If we don’t take urgent action these impacts will get much worse.
Declaring a climate emergency means we are prepared to play our part. Alongside other cities around the world, we are committed to taking the action needed to prevent climate change becoming much worse.
You can learn more about what we’re doing to tackle the climate emergency, and the city and council’s carbon footprints on our climate action page.
Leicester's Climate Emergency Conversation
At the start of 2020 we held Leicester's climate emergency conversation, in which we asked for the public’s views on what we should do about the climate emergency. We’re really grateful for the hundreds of useful and interesting responses we received from people, groups and organisations across Leicester.
The conversation included two climate assemblies for city residents and young people, a conversation pack for local groups and organisations and an online discussion forum. We also received lots of direct responses by letter and email. Reports on the results of all of these conversation methods are available on this page.
We also carried out a consultation on our Consultation Hub, and a report on those results is available on the Consultation Hub website.
Contact us
If you have a question about our work on the climate emergency, please use the contact methods below to get in touch or keep up-to-date.
Send us an email: sustainability@leicester.gov.uk
Ring us: 0116 454 2110
Follow us on Twitter (@GreenerLeic)