Devon County Council claims to be on track to meet its climate change targets.

A city council said it was on track to meet its goal of becoming carbon-neutral in the next eight years.

Devon County Council set a target of reducing carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 in 2013.

It intends to offset the additional 30% reduction through projects such as tree planting.

It revealed that by the end of 2021, it had reduced its carbon footprint by 53%, with a senior councillor calling the progress “really, really amazing.”

Councillor Andrea Davis, Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Environment, and Transport, stated, “Over the next months and years, we will continue to reduce emissions where we can through projects such as increasing the proportion of electric vehicles.” The pandemic has also had an impact on council staff, who are “comfortable using video conferencing rather than travelling for meetings,” according to the report.

Councillor Julian Brazil, the leader of the opposition, was critical, saying, “We seem to be patting ourselves on the back for cutting our carbon dioxide emissions by 53%.”

The majority of those occurred as a result of other factors, not because we were attempting to reduce our carbon dioxide oxide emissions.

“It is insufficiently proactive. It doesn’t take it seriously enough.”