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Getting beyond the climate wishlists: the struggle to turn carbon pledges into action
Councils face an uphill struggle to turn their carbon reduction pledges into meaningful action.
The post-Covid recovery needs to be green if local and national commitments to tackle climate change are to be met.
The scale of the challenge is significant; it took the UK 26 years to cut emissions by 40% from 1990 levels. A further 40% must now be cut in a decade, but much of the cheaper and less disruptive low-hanging fruit has already been picked.
So far councils have lacked the direction and tools they need from the centre to take the necessary measures to honour the climate emergency pledges they have made, particularly regarding retrofitting buildings and decarbonising energy systems on an area-wide scale. Work to improve energy efficiency has been hampered by the demise of a flagship government programme. The £1.5bn green homes grant voucher scheme was scrapped six months after its launch
Capacity concerns as job ads for climate change officers go unfilled
The director of a network of locally elected leaders focused on tackling climate change has warned that councils are being held back from action because of a lack of skills capacity in the sector.
Polly Billington (Lab), the director of UK100, told LGC that local authorities are “advertising jobs and not finding people who can fill them” as decarbonisation expertise is still a “new area in some ways”.
A new report by UK100 released today claims that in the last decade, “many local authorities have reduced resources in departments that have the power to make significant impacts on emissions” such as planning and enforcement, sustainability officers, transport subsidies and housing.