Leeds’ planned Clean Air Zone is no longer required because of businesses switching to cleaner vehicles faster than expected, a joint review by Leeds City Council and central government has concluded.
Senior councillors will discuss the conclusions and proposals to voluntarily introduce new air quality targets that go further than the national standards at a meeting of the council’s Executive Board next week.

Carbon emissions from Yorkshire and Humber have fallen by well over a third and are projected to halve by 2050, a new report from the Place-Based Climate Action Network (PCAN) reveals. 
 
A summary carbon roadmap report for Yorkshire and the Humber, published today, shows that despite the reductions – brought about largely by national decarbonisation of electricity – the region still has much to do to stay within its share of the global carbon budget and reduce dangerous climate change. 
 

So your area has declared a climate emergency – what next? Broad declarations should become specific targets that need to be supported by action plans, but the readiness of places to deliver them is rarely clear-cut.

This has been the challenge faced by Leeds Climate Commission, which has pioneered a methodology to address levels of readiness across sectors.

A large-scale new tree planting initiative, which forms part of Leeds’ ambitious programme to make the city carbon neutral by 2030, has been launched today with the first potential sites identified. The first saplings will be planted this winter, with the woodland creation programme set to see 5.8 million trees planted across the city in the next 25 years. To demonstrate the type of woodlands that will be planted in the future, one planted two years ago on King Alfred’s Field was visited earlier today by Councillor Lisa Mulherin and Councillor Mohammed Rafique.