CLIMATE change and will be the focus of a virtual conference that will span three countries next week.

Leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, Boris Palmer, Mayor of Tübingen in Germany and Christopher Taylor, Mayor of Ann Arbor in Michigan in the US will share plans and discuss their joint desire to tackle change and reduce carbon emissions.

They will also explore how the global coronavirus pandemic has forced reconsideration of some ways of working and travel, and what this means for the environment.

Members of the public can follow the discussion by logging onto the webinar on Zoom at 7pm on Wednesday June 24.

Each civic leader will present for 15 minutes, followed by 25 minutes of questions from the chairperson. The meeting will then be opened for public questions, which can by posed using the chat function on Zoom.

Durham was recently voted Britain’s greenest city by solar technology specialists, The Solar Centre, which researched Government data to rank cities.

In February 2019, the council declared a new target of being 60 per cent carbon neutral by 2030, as well as pledging to explore ways to become 100 per cent carbon neutral by 2050.

Tübingen has been twinned with County Durham since 1969 and shares the same passion for protecting the environment. Mayor Palmer has ambitious plans to make Tübingen Germany’s first carbon neutral city and is a strong supporter of the city’s environmental campaign, Tübingen Macht Blau.

Like Durham and Tübingen, Ann Arbor is also a university city with impressive carbon reduction credentials. Mayor Taylor declared a climate emergency in November 2019 and launched a plan to make the city carbon neutral by 2030 under the title A2Zero.

The virtual event is free to join following online registration with the National League of Cities.

The presentations and further information will be available after the event.