Norfolk in News – Environment campaign goes worldwide

Norfolk's pioneering CRed carbon reduction campaign is spreading, with an American town and an area of Japan looking to sign up. CRed's aim of cutting Norfolk emissions of greenhouse gas - a major contributor to climate change - has struck a chord.

Chapel Hill, in North Carolina, wants to become the first American town to sign up and, at the other side of the world, 3300 has been granted to a feasibility study in Okinawa, Japan.

Researcher Ryoko Carroll, of the Okinawa Centre for Climate Change Action, has been granted 650,000 yen from the Japan Science Society for a study to see whether CRed would work there.

In Chapel Hill, the council's committee on sustainability, energy and environment has recommended the proposal to become a CRed town be adopted.

CRed spokesman Marcus Armes said: "If we are to make the deep cuts in carbon emissions required to avert the worst impacts of man-made climate change then we need an international effort to reduce carbon emissions, and that is why the Kyoto Protocol came into effect.

"What is particularly pleasing about working with Chapel Hill is that, although the US Government have not signed up to Kyoto, American citizens in North Carolina are taking matters into their own hands and joining with like-minded citizens across the globe to do their bit on climate change."