The world has changed a great deal since Staffordshire Moorlands District Council declared a climate emergency 12 months ago - but how is the Moorlands tackling climate change one year on from that decision?

The council declared a climate emergency at a meeting on 10 July last year and, since then, has established the Climate Change sub-committee and agreed a work programme. The authority's main goal is to make the Moorlands carbon neutral by 2030.

In order to achieve this, investigations have been launched into several larger scale projects. This has included looking into investing in green energy projects, such as solar power and wind farms.

Other projects have included looking into electric vehicle charging points and local offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, plans to set up a Staffordshire Moorlands Community Climate Change Fund of £10,000 to encourage community initiatives have been agreed.

Cllr Joe Porter has also been appointed as the authority's Cabinet member for Climate Change, becoming the council's youngest ever member of Cabinet.

Cllr Porter said: "As with every other area of our lives and work, the measures to contain Covid-19 have had an impact on how quickly we have been able to deliver some of the key actions we had planned for the first half of this year.

"But that does not mean we have been sitting still. Tackling climate change remains as important as it was before the pandemic and, if anything, the changes we have all made to our lives have raised the priority of this work for many people.

"In the year since the Council declared a climate emergency we've been laying the foundations for targeted and effective actions going forward. In practice, this means we've been increasing our knowledge of the science of climate change so we can better understand how to mitigate the impact and spending time building the strong partnerships with our industries and our communities that are critical to our joint success."

He added: "This is a once in a lifetime chance to change our behaviours and act on climate change and I'm proud of the ground we've covered so far. But this is work without end and we have much to do - I'm very much looking forward to getting on with it as the restrictions continue to gradually ease."