MUCH more needs to be done to reduce carbon emissions in the Kingdom as right now "climate change is winning".
Fife Council's environment spokesperson Jan Wincott made the admission as a new strategy and action plan to tackle global warming was approved by councillors. At the cabinet committee she said: "Climate change is such a huge problem and what we're doing here is putting parts in place to try and fix it.
"There's a huge amount of work that we still need to do because at the moment climate change is winning."
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Climate Fife 2024 has three main areas where transformations "must be made" over the next four years.
They are: changing the energy system to low carbon; protecting Fife from the unavoidable impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss; and empowering communities to transform food, waste, transport and energy generation systems to create community wealth and wellbeing.
Cllr Wincott said: "The important thing about climate change is that this document is already out of date as it says 2022 was the hottest year on record.
"It's actually now 2023 so it is a moveable feast."
The UN says that, since the 1800s, human activity has been the main driver of climate change - long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, with increased storms and rainfall - primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.
While it needs people around the world to take action, the council say they're doing their bit and have reduced their carbon footprint by almost half since 2014-15.
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The action plan includes making the new £223m Dunfermline Learning Campus "the largest Passivhaus standard building in Europe", investing more than £13.5m in decarbonising 22 council properties and building 750 affordable homes by 2027 that all have zero-emissions heating systems.
As well as energy efficient homes, it will focus on local food, reducing waste, low carbon public transport, expanding flood mitigation and road drainage works, and creating seven 'biodiversity neighbourhoods' across Fife.
Cllr Wincott said there was "a lot of good work going on" and added that "only by working together can we tackle both our impact on the climate and the changing climate’s impact on us".
However, funding is an issue as she told councillors: "Environment Standards Scotland have already made it clear that local authorities are not being funded sufficiently to meet the climate change targets they're asking of us.
"Funding is a widespread problem and will continue to be so."
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