Leadership for taking the climate emergency agenda forward locally

APSE Energy recently listed 12 points to stimulate thoughts for those councils who have already or are about to, declare a climate emergency. A link to the list can be found here.

The first of those points is leadership. The fact that many councils have decided to declare a climate emergency reflects their standing in the community. Councillors understand that they have a role to play to address the problem of climate change and those issues that accompany it. Making a declaration is a logical step. It won’t be the first step for most local authorities who have already instigated energy efficiency or generation projects, are working to reduce fuel poverty or support local businesses to pay less for energy. However, a declaration is a formal step which sets out the council’s position clearly and puts the topic at the centre of its agenda.

A declaration takes the responsibility away from a specific individual so it may no longer be a lead councillor or senior officer who is pushing for action – it should now be the whole council that is planning and acting to tackle climate change.

Leadership involves acting appropriately. If there is an emergency some resources need to be allocated to that emergency. Some local authorities have allocated substantial resources and have been doing so for many years. Unfortunately, it may take others a bit longer to fully realise the scale of the declaration they have made and the actions needed.

If a local authority is to become carbon neutral there needs to be significant work carried out across all services, with contributions from all officers and councillors, all of whom will have had training on the subject and are committed to ongoing change in the way they work and live. In other words, this is no small undertaking. If the target is for the whole locality to be carbon neutral the task becomes extremely challenging to say the least.

All of this doesn’t mean targets can’t be achieved of course, but it does mean that significant resources need to be allocated to the task, that external support will probably have to be brought in, that pressure will have to be put on regional and national government, that suppliers will have to adapt how they work and local people and businesses will have to be supported and promoted in equal measure to help bring about change.

All of this takes leadership. One approach is to get the councillors to concentrate on spreading the message externally – at surgeries, when talking to local organisations and companies, through political parties and other groups – in other words, they are working to spread the message outside of the council. Meanwhile, officers will be working internally to change how the local authority plans, acts, procures and delivers.

Whatever form it takes, local authorities cannot be seen to be ignoring this agenda – there is too much public interest and many pressure groups highlighting the issue. Nor can they be seen to be paying lip service – in other words, if an emergency is declared appropriate action is needed. National governments, multinational companies, big and small businesses and many other organisations are focussing on the climate agenda. As the only democratically elected body representing local people, local authorities need to take a lead and be seen to be taking a lead, in directing and taking relevant action.

APSE Energy is working to promote how councils should respond to this wider agenda and supporting individual councils with strategies, action plans and projects to meet targets.