How to Get Councils to Implement a Climate Emergency Through Policy?

[Tom]

These topics need linking;

What is the best local authority or council policy you've found to make things better?

I thought I’d start this thread to get people thinking about some great things councils could do in terms of policy to make a city or local authority better for it’s people. I’m thinking… has any local authority cracked waste - recycling seems such a mess, it would be great if we could have examples of local authorities who’ve actually done this well… Also - what about green space standards… or standards for housing… any standards which people could point to would be super useful. Potentiall…

[Tom]

I’ve just started working on some policy ideas with the local XR group. Here’s my thinking (could be helpful for others):

Step 1: Consider what a council actually has the power to make decisions about (example below for district council):

• The way their estate is managed; buildings, green spaces and rental properties.
• Building standards through planning permissions and guidance
• Fleet of vehicles they use
• Offices & staff management
• Council funds pensions
• Business rates
• Waste disposal
• Budget
• Air quality standards
• Low emissions zones
• Parking
• Local plan (although this is set to 2031 and is a huge piece of work to unravel again)

What areas do they have considerable influence:

• Contractors – waste etc
• Suppliers
• Landscape scale planning
• Standards of properties being used in their area
• Relevant national policy (e.g. landfill tax)

Step 2: Consider where there are easy wins

Do you want them to implement all policies now or do we want involvement for the long run so we can do a bit of learning by doing?

What are the easiest things to achieve?

I would argue that actual policies to help them implement a climate emergency are probably the most effective as they provide good PR for the council and getting those popular wins in will help galvanise further involvement. If we go for too much too early we could damage relationships.

I provide all my thinking on policies and welcome a discussion about prioritisation.

Step 3: Long List Policy Ideas

Estate management

• A full audit of environmental impact (carbon, water, ecosystems) to be conducted
• Environment policy to be put in place for the estate that results in zero carbon scope 1 carbon emissions and a net gain in biodiversity by 2030

Buildings on their estate (in order of priority):

• All moved to be powered by 100% renewable electricity for the next budget
• All energy efficiency measures with a payback period of 8 years to be researched and implemented within the next two years of budgets
• Solar panels to be installed on all buildings that can provide an 11-year return on investment
• Any heating units that need replacing across the estate to be replaced with renewable alternatives (e.g. air source or ground source heat pumps), and for all buildings on the estate to be powered by electric sourced heating by 2030.

Note – it’s important to get the life time value out of existing units (there is a considerable carbon cost to manufacturing and disposal)

Green space on the estate (includes; road verges, walking routes, parks, green spaces in front of buildings)

• Create wildflower road verges and implement low level cutting regime – potentially in partnership with a charity (see Dorset’s plans here – there are numerous other examples across the country)
• Review management practices of green estate in partnership with a local conversation charity, and implement a nature recovery network across the area which leaves connected parts of the estate for nature, with low level management practices.

Fleet of vehicles

• Move all vehicles managed by the council to electric by 2030, meaning that any currently needing to be replaced to be replaced with electric

Offices, supplier & staff management

• Move to paperless offices by 2025 (although I haven’t done the analysis here – I’m not convinced it’s more environmental friendly)
• Implement working from home where possible to minimise transport
• Begin to measure travel to work emissions and set a pathway and mechanism (scope 3) to reduce this to zero by 2030
• Set new standards on tendering for work from council to influence suppliers (e.g. Environmental policy scrutiny, carbon emissions from services provided)

Council funds and pensions

• Divest all council funds and pensions from oil and gas by 2021
• Create means to invest in ways to create a zero carbon Cherwell district council (Cornwalls investment in 30 million pound forest to achieve this is very interesting – can’t find whether it was passed)

Building standards through planning permissions and guidance

• A percentage canopy cover in all new buildings is a great policy – High Wycombe have gone for 30% - it’s a smart policy… (although do acknowledge the trees policy as discussed in the meeting)
• All new buildings to not have gas central heating (use geothermal or air source heat pumps), to have highest energy efficiency standards (potentially passivhaus) and to have solar panels
• A 30% net gain in biodiversity must be achieved from any building constructed.

Business rates (so much which can be done here but also really controverial):

• Lower business rates for zero emissions businesses (or potential carbon differentiated business rates?!)
• Potential business rates for ecosystem services (flood & climate mitigation, biodiversity etc etc)

Waste disposal – one highlighted in XR document

• Most forward looking policy is pay per weight policy (implemented in Ireland and Norway – news article here good) but I’m not sure it’s something that could be implemented at this scale, but could be asked for a feasibility study to be conducted by the waste management company.
• Waste company to be set new standards for delivery and encouragement of reduction in non-recyclable waste.

Air quality standards, Low Emissions Zones & Parking

• Establishing zero emissions zones by a particular date has been done affectively by Oxford CC, with this probably being the most forward looking policy in the country, but more could be done in this space – e.g. Congestion Charge (very effective in London, would bring in money whilst reducing emissions), electric cars given free parking and access to bus lanes.
• A good policy would be that an area of Banbury would be set as a zero emissions zone by 2025.

Local Plan

• The central tenant needs to be about carbon and ecosystems which would mean mapping a nature recovery network and embedding it into the plan and finding ways to mitigate for all carbon emissions across the area.

[emilymott]

Hi Russell- I agree with your comment about how declaring a Climate Emergency doesn’t necessarily get practical policy change going. Surrey recently declared and yet soon after approved 30 years of drilling for oil and gas at Horse Hill near Gatwick. In terms for declaring a Wildlife Emergency-it would be good to tie in with local RSPB group to do a bird survey and find out if there are any endangered or red list birds in the parish. The same can be done with bats and insects and trees. It would be fantastic to create an educational tool kit on biodiversity that is very localised --created in the parish for use in local schools for assemblies or for wildlife talks at the parish halls, tying in with expert speakers from the Wildlife Trust or Woodland Trust etc.

[russell]

Thanks for the ideas about surveying local wildlife @emilymott. Really useful.

[russell]

Just an update on the progress with this at the Parish Council:

During the initial vote to set up the working party to decide on the wording of the emergency declaration, the support was unanimous.

However, the Chariman was away on holiday. At the next meeting he was back and it turns out that he is a climate change denier.

This gave other like-minded councillors courage to turn against the idea of declaring an emergency. Why they couldn’t have been honest about their views in the first place I do not know . In an even more bizarre twist, one of the councillors who actually voluntarily joined the Climate and Ecological Emergency working party, revealed that they are a “climate sceptic” .

TLDR We are now in a position that it might not get through.

I’m now proposing that we survey local residents to see what the feeling of the community is about this.

I’m hoping that the results of the survey will show strong support for declaring a climate emergency and that will strengthen our position enough to get it through the vote. It’s all a bit frustrating really.

[Tom]

Am linking my most recent negative experience to this topic:

To divest or not divest, that is the question?

I’m sat in the Cherwell District Council meeting writing this, listening to a debate about a motion to divest pension funds. There are a bunch of conservative councillors arguing that we need to keep their pension funds in oil companies as they believe that with their infrastructure and research potential, they can be part of the solution. On the pro divestment side we have Green and Labour councillors arguing that we need to divest the funds, as oil companies simply won’t take action, and dive…

[Heatherdlc]

My local town council and county council have both declared a climate emergency. County wide, there will be re-wilding projects. Closer to home, a tree planting project got underway this weekend with 45 Trees planted, and another 100 planned in a few weeks

[Tina_Irving]

The Highland Council in Scotland does not even have a Climate Change Committee… it was disbanded in 2012 but apparently they have a climate change coordinator now. If you look at the map on www.wordsreunited.co.uk you will see that there is nothing north of Inverness.

Belfast City Council have declared a Climate Emergency…they did that on 20th September 2019. Not sure how they are engaging… I will enquire!

[Heatherdlc]

I attach the Climate Emergency Strategy that my local council is currently consulting on.

It might give ideas for others who are lobbying or working with their councils.

North-Somerset-climate-emergency-strategy-2019.pdf (201.8 KB)

[Tom]

Thanks Heather! Here’s the updated list of all councils who’ve declared a climate emergency in the UK:

https://www.climateemergency.uk/blog/list-of-councils/