The County Council’s Environment & Green Investment Committee, which I chair, will receive the county’s latest carbon footprint report on Thursday 20 January.

The report includes the following comparison of carbon emissions between the Cambridgeshire districts.

It’s interesting to note the very obvious differences between the different districts. These include the huge contribution of LULUCF (that’s Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry) in East Cambridgeshire and Fenland. And of course the similarly very significant contribution of transport in Huntingdonshire and South Cambridgeshire. Without these two major pressures, Cambridge’s footprint is very much smaller – just one-third that of Huntingdonshire, which is the largest.

Given its current position, it will be interesting to watch Huntingdonshire District Council achieve its recently adopted target of net zero for the district by 2040. That’s just eighteen years away. If it can achieve this, it will be a considerable help to the county as a whole, where emissions from peat in the rural areas will be a real challenge.