A top team of environmental experts, charged with ensuring that Devon reduces carbon emissions as quickly as possible, is calling on residents to submit their ideas on how to do it.

The Net-Zero Task Force has been appointed by the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group - made up of Devon's councils, emergency services and business groups - to deliver the Devon Carbon Plan.

The Carbon Plan will lay out in stark terms what every resident, organisation and business has to do to reduce emissions and safeguard the planet for the next generation.

This Call for Evidence is open to everybody, and every submission will be reviewed by the Task Force.

Submissions will feed into the creation of the Carbon Plan, which includes a series of thematic hearings in November and December.

The hearings will seek to understand what needs to happen to achieve rapid decarbonisation in Devon, and how it can be delivered.

The hearings will be divided into:

• food, land and sea (including agriculture, forestry, fisheries and land use)
• mobility and transport
• the built environment
• energy and waste

A draft of the Devon Carbon Plan will be created through a three-step process;  firstly, Task Force members and expert witnesses, all recognised in their respective fields, will discuss and then review the evidence.

Then the Task Force will present a series of 'options' to a Citizen's Assembly, which will be convened from January.

Finally, the deliberations of the Citizen's Assembly will lead to the Draft Devon Carbon Plan, which is due for publication next spring, 2020.

Please submit your ideas at this link.