Reform UK scraps Derbyshire climate change aim

Alan Graves (Reform UK) said there was a "massive change" at the council

An aim to tackle the causes and impact of climate change has been scrapped by Reform UK-led Derbyshire County Council.

The authority will now "support the development of energy security, energy efficiency and clean energy", it has confirmed.

Reform UK said the decision was made due to the cost of net zero, though this figure was not confirmed.

The Labour government has said the climate and nature crisis is the greatest long-term global challenge we face and wants to reduce carbon emissions to "net zero" by 2050.

Reform scrapped the county's climate change committee in May 2025 one week after winning power, saying they did not believe the committee was of "any value".

Council leader Alan Graves, from Reform UK, said: "There's a massive change in this council with how people think about things.

"I'm hoping to get from it not only those changes within policy and where we're going, but also the language that we use that people can understand and make sense of and how it will affect their lives."

Green party leader in Derbyshire, Gez Kinsella, said: "We understand the Reform administration don't want to use words like 'net zero' and 'emissions', but what are they going to do around growing the green economy?

"What are they going to do around insulating homes? And what are they going to do around mitigating the worst impacts of climate change?"

Green transition

The government said it wants the UK to be a global leader in the technology needed to decarbonise the world's economies and The Confederation of British Industry said the transition to a greener economy was bringing jobs to parts of the UK experiencing industrial decline.

But Graves claimed the money generated in the green transition comes mainly from taxpayers.

"Is that what people want to spend their taxes on? That's what you have to ask as a question," he said.

The changes have been made in an In Year Council Plan, which will be discussed by Derbyshire County Council's cabinet on 11 September 2025.

Flooding in Derbyshire in 2019

The UK Met Office says that, on average, winters will become wetter and summers drier due to climate change, but summer rain will be more intense.

The 10 years between 2011 and 2020 were 9% wetter than the period between 1961 and 1990, it added.

Researchers say that by significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and using a combination of natural and man-made barriers, the worst effects of flooding in the future can be lessened.