Draft of opening remarks to the Second Local Government Climate Conference, attended by nearly 200 delegates including over 50 local councils, upon the launch of the Nottingham Call (plus the Call itself and an update from February 2006) -
Local Government delivers change.
We are improving our ways of working faster than any other sector. Local Government is also inspected like no other sector. We feel central gov’t bearing down. We know the reform agenda has brought a lot - but isn’t there a more constructive way? I hope the part of the Call on Central Government brings a change; but wouldn’t it be so much more fun if central government just got alongside us. You may know that the key tests of the new round of corporate inspections are ambition, priorities, capacity, performance management and achievements. Everyone here today will be able to bring news of their achievements; quite right too. I’ll list Nottingham’s - public transport, travel planning, purchasing green energy, incineration and district heating rather land-fill, Nottingham in Bloom. But let’s be clear we’re all contributing and we need to celebrate everyone’s contribution. Many here will have achieved loads and will be impatient at lack of progress elsewhere. But our aim, our ambition, is to bring more councils on board. Our ambition is to make a bigger difference. We want to increase the impact of our work, by better working in partnership. Better capacity. Hence the larger number of sponsors, both for the conference and for the declaration, and the new call. A Performance Management framework is part of the Call. Boosted by an Action Pack So, the Nottingham Call covers the bases - ambition, priorities, capacity, performance management and achievements. We’ve just passed our Corporate Assessment. And we’ll back in 5 years time to review our commitments. But in the meantime let’s make the most of the day. Let’s talk amongst friends and build alliances. Let’s grab the new ideas and new technologies and make work for us. - The delegates of the Second National Councils’ Climate Conference, 5th December 2005 call upon: • Local Government to redouble its efforts to tackle the local causes and impacts of climate change over the next five years, to help meet Kyoto and domestic emissions targets and implement the required adaptation measures • Local Government’s strategic partners to support and amplify local action on climate change • English regional bodies and the Devolved Administrations to actively support and resource climate change partnerships to lead action in every English region and in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland • Central Government to actively support and help resource the development of local government action through the implementation of the revised Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change and the Councils’ Climate Action Pack As part of our commitment to help widen and deepen local government commitment to tackling climate change within the UK, the hosts, organizers and sponsors of the conference commit ourselves to the following Five Point Plan: Objective 1: To double the number of local authorities publicly committed to tackling climate change within a year (eg. by signing the Nottingham Declaration, the Welsh Declaration or similar) and to double again within the next two years Target: 200 councils by the end of December 2006, 400 councils by 2008 Objective 2: To develop and launch a new package ‘The Councils’ Climate Action Pack’ to assist councils in meeting their public climate change commitments, supported by a new multi-agency working group (the Declaration Development Group) Target: Hold a national launch of the ‘Councils’ Climate Action Pack’ by the end of April 2006 followed by regional dissemination workshops, UK wide Objective 3: To establish milestones and monitoring arrangements that encourage councils to make progress and enable them to report on their achievements in mitigating emissions and adapting to climate impacts on an annual basis Target: Begin publishing the progress on milestones and monitoring from publicly committed councils by April 2007 Objective 4: To introduce a benchmark for self assessment of council action on climate change, with options for follow up external appraisal and review Target: Introduce by December 2006 Objective 5: To reconvene in Nottingham in 2010 to review and report upon the success of this plan and set future objectives Target: Hold conference and publish a report by December 2010 Councils’ Climate Action Pack The Concept • The Action Pack will contain a mixture of tools, guidance and services • It’s flexible – the contents may change over time in response to changing needs and will need to be actively managed • It will contain some off the peg items (ie. Existing tools) some bespoke items and also be a repository of tools and good practice that have been developed by councils or others. • Some elements of the Pack will be in the public domain, although some services may need to be paid for. • Access to the whole Pack, although free, will be restricted to Nottingham Declaration (or similar) signatories The Purpose • The primary purpose of the Action Pack is to provide a framework that councils can use to follow up their public commitments to tackle climate change, to: • Broaden commitment (ie. Encourage more signatories) in the first place • Deepen commitment amongst existing signatories by encouraging: o progression through mitigation milestones (which could be self declared, and/or externally validated) o progression through adaptation milestones (which could be self declared and/or quality assured by regional partnerships) o evaluation against a climate benchmark and providing options for further support (eg. Peer review) The Contents (phased development and release) • ‘At a glance’ guide and overview of contents • Guidance notes • Signposts to existing tools/guidance/support organisations • New tools eg. Adaptation Wizard • Milestones for mitigation and adaptation • Monitoring tool(s) • Optional self assessment benchmark, with the possibility of external appraisal and review services • A-Z good practice examples • Details of partners Declaration Development Group • The Action Pack will be developed, launched and managed by a group of key agencies, including Carbon Trust, Energy Saving Trust, Environment Agency, Improvement and Development Agency, Local Government Association, Nottingham City Council, UK Climate Impacts Programme Update - 15th February, 2006 - All speeches, presentations, workshop notes, table discussions and personal pledges are on the conference website at www.nottingham2005.org, courtesy of ICLEI. You can watch Elliot Morley’s short video message here. (A selection of photos is also available.) To request more information about the new Nottingham Declaration, please visit the Energy Saving Trust website at www.est.org.uk/nottinghamdeclaration. The outcomes of the Nottingham event were relayed to the Fourth Municipal Leaders’ Summit in Montreal, 5th – 7th December 2005, a parallel event to the UN COP11 process. More details are at: www.iclei.org/montrealsummit, including the World Mayors’ Council on Climate Change and the MontrealDeclaration… A printed summary report with key messages for decision makers in all UK local authorities will be circulated shortly. This will be the first of several milestones in the Target 200 Campaign (one of the pledges in the Nottingham Call), where the objective is to double the number of councils publicly committed to tackling climate change by the end of the year. The Declaration Development Group has been busy working on the Councils’ Climate Action Pack and will host a workshop style launch of an early version of this here in Nottingham in April, where stakeholders will be invited to a test run to shape improvements, before a national launch in May/June in London, followed by regional events around the country. They’re also looking at opportunities to join forces with the Beacon Councils on Sustainable Energy. The Declaration signatory list has already grown to 105, with Uttlesford and Braintree having stepped up in Essex and others having now taken the plunge and signed the pledge. Reading is ready to roll next month, then Lambeth and a Welsh Declaration on Climate Change is awaited, so progress is definitely underway.[Last updated - 2006-02-15]
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