Dear Sir,

On Wednesday, as the County Council’s Climate Change Champion, I was given the unprecedented honour of speaking to Cabinet on the Council’s Climate Emergency Report Action Plan. This is what I said:

OPENING COMMENTS

“In a subject where opinion is polarised and vocal, this report seeks to be a model of consultation and reconciliation. It is undeniably amazing in its detail and ambition. I hope that people reading it will agree that the 111 costed action projects are proper, long-term initiatives that will both reduce our emissions and help protect us against the consequences of climate change … but that each is also, individually, an environmentally-profitable thing-to-do.

“And I very much hope that people will agree that this Plan – which, for an outlay of £3 million, leverages grants to achieve a Council investment of £13 million and, county-wide, up to £50 million-worth of ecological improvements and associated economic regeneration … that this is a wise way to spend residents’ taxes.

THE PLAN COMES IN FOUR SECTIONS.

“Section One (especially Tables 3 to 5) details 28 actions by which DCC proposes to reduce its own output of 60,000 tonnes CO2e pa. We are being so successful in this regard that the Plan proposes to increase our 2030 reduction target from 60% to 80%. More importantly, alongside the action projects, we are working to EMBED climate action into the Council’s everyday routines – into its planning, procurement, pension arrangements, departmental budgeting … into its employees’ job descriptions. The aim is to become, not a Council which ‘does climate stuff’, but a Climate Emergency Council.

“Sections Two and Three seek to address the 2¼ million tonnes of CO2 which County Durham as a whole pumps into the atmosphere every year, and Table 7 lists 83 costed actions which together represent an absolute benefit to the environment and the economy … whatever you think of climate change.

“The danger of distant target dates – even of 2030 – is that you set off too slowly and fall short because you have left everything too late. This must not happen to Durham County Council. This is a two-year Action Plan – i.e. the first of a number of short-term plans – and it will hopefully leave us ahead of trajectory when we replace it with our next Plan in 2022.

“We will not achieve this alone, so Section 3 of the Report looks at how the Council will work with the public and our partner organisations. The Council is currently reviewing its partnership structures, so this section of the report is less detailed, but it acknowledges that we MUST develop mechanisms which continue to allow the public to monitor and influence our climate change strategy, which enable local groups to take climate action in their communities and neighbourhoods, and which tap the potential of our corporate partners. This must be next year’s ambition.

“Finally, Section Four looks at what we want from our government. We do not have the money, the regulatory framework, or the enforcement powers to bring climate neutrality to County Durham. Those things must come from our government and, like Churchill, our message to them has to be: “Give us the tools and we will finish the job”. I was at a conference last year where the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy recommended DCC’s policies as a starting point for any council wanting to take climate action. We need to turn this approbation into assistance. We need to learn to lobby.”

Cabinet approved the plan, which you can read for yourself in full here: http://bit.ly/CERAP2020

Cllr John D Clare

(DCC Climate Change Champion)