Local government as community leader: Leading the behaviour change through political commitment
PART A - EXTENDED PRE-AMBLE
Section A: What do we want - radical change
We want radical change.
In Nottingham,
we have a combined heat and power plant,
we purchase green electricity,
we’ve cut water consumption,
we’ve invested in home insulation.
We have the best buses and tram system in the country.
And yet we know there is so much more to do.
Local Government has shown its appetite for change – over half the councils have now signed the Nottingham Declaration.
We have delivered improved schools and organisational improvement.
We are the advocates and shapers of our cities & towns, villages & communities. TAKE FOIL FROM LYONS
We can meet the challenge of climate change, in partnership with a resolved government. TAKE FOIL FROM GORE
Section B: The radical challenge
Creating momentum.
Use Gore movie; then Stern report; now Climate Change Bill.
The Stern Review sets out the challenge.
The Stern Review's principal conclusion is that tackling climate change is a pro-growth strategy.
The earlier effective action is taken, the less costly it will be.
The overall costs of climate change if emissions are not curbed are equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year now and forever; worst case scenarios increase the loss to 20% ($7 trillion).
The costs of taking action to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions can be limited to around 1% of global GDP per annum; In other words, $1 invested now can save $5 later.
On current trends, average global temperatures will rise by 2° C to 3° C within 50 years.
The global power sector will have to be at least 60% decarbonised by 2050 to stabilise greenhouse gases.
Action is required to address deforestation, which is estimated to represent more than 18% of global emissions, more than the global transport sector.
Markets for low-carbon energy products are likely to be worth at least $500 billion per year by 2050. In section B need to stress more the market opportunity for environmental products. Its the growth market and even the FT are now dubbing it the “Green Gold Rush”. As with original gold rushes there is market failure/ wide boys operating but as it matures so will returns and impact.
The three elements of policy required for an effective global response are:
A carbon price, implemented through tax, trading, or regulation
Support for innovation and the deployment of low carbon technologies
Action to remove barriers to energy efficiency, and to increase public awareness and engagement
Section C: What do we want - a radical vision
A vision might be -
people living in energy efficient homes; insulated and drawing green electricity and underground or solar heating; [40% CARBON HOUSE]
people consuming responsibly, from more local sources, getting less packaging in the first place, wasting less food, repairing more, sorting what they no longer need for re-use or recycling;
people living near where they work, confident to walk, cycle or use public transport; using telecoms more effectively;
people choosing local schools (cos they have the confidence to);
Section D: What obstacles do we face?
What are the obstacles? -
The market - can’t replace it per se but very hard to make the market reflect environmental concerns - e.g. the real cost of emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; offsetting and allowances are new TECHNIQUES.
Modern living - people are very busy - they have lots of other things to do;
Lack of knowledge - a lot of this stuff can be outside common experience;
Image - a perception of it being marginal, or puritanical;
Anti-consumerist - challenging that people should have a good time? NO FUN
It requires change; and sometimes telling people they can’t have what they want; and Whitehall are risk-averse;
And then the points Blair made way back in September 2004 - requires policy decisions - the cost of which hits before the election; the benefit of which may never be perceivable.
The obstacles can be addressed but it can be tough.
PART B - ADDRESSING QUESTIONS ASKED BY THE CONFERENCE ORGANISERS
Section E: Leading the behaviour change through political commitment
A recap of our commitment -
For the Council, tour, scrutiny, strategy, refreshed Declaration.
For the city -
Our policy - tram, District Heating, Planning & Workplace Parking Levy;
Our leadership - Science City, Big Wheel & public transport; Bio City & ND8 (CHECK) ; encouraging businesses; leading the debate - sending out clear messages.
Section F: Reflecting the concerns of the electorate: The benefits of pledging to tackle climate change in local politics
The Labour Party has just done well in Nottingham, against a national trend.
No boasting here cos it’s a different kind of meeting.
The opposition have said we worked hard and we were well organised.
But powerful messages were an essential element of winning the lection.
Key high-level messages were tackling crime & grime, improving educational attainment, getting people into work including by embracing scientific progress and this time, something to say about recycling.
A step above what we had last time.
And an issue on the doorstep this time. Better than four years ago, when I didn't record anyone raising the issue of climate change. Then climate change is perceived primarily as a global/national issue, people did not tend to raise this on the doorstep with prospective councillors as they see it more of an issue for MPs. People are interested in the environment when asked about it although don’t tend to bring it up other than in the form of more immediate concerns about street cleanliness, traffic congestion, etc.
A long term commitment can yield benefits.
Hilary Benn came to my ward, as part of an effort to bring the environment to the fore.
He met passengers of a demand-responsive bus service, aimed at older people living on estates between main routes.
He talked to school pupils about science lessons, with the curriculum now including calculating 'carbon footprints' and home-energy efficiency.
He also met residents who have taken up grants for cavity wall and loft insulation - my estate has got a pretty good take-up rate - and one who has even had solar water heating put in.
Good chat, good energy and one of the few times I felt that environment really came to the fore in the campaign.
A spate of questions came up, although perhaps only from one neighbourhood, which led us to produce an environment front page for one of our newsletters.
But by the end of this campaign, I wondered if some of the environmental momentum had been lost.
We had had weeks of media coverage stressing the importance of climate change before the election campaign. Then the emphasis came back to the inconvenience of fortnightly bin collections, even though research indicated these yielded higher recycling rates.
Media interest is fickle and they talked up the bins issue.
The Secretary of State has now responded by emphasising consultation and customer choice.
Neighbouring Borough of Gedling have now decided to do weekly collections in the Summer - projected fall in collection rate from 36% to 25% at more expense [CHECK RATES.]
Environment Minister David Miliband launched a national environmental 'pledge card'.
But media coverage of that was lost to speculation on whether the Environment Minister would stand for Prime Minister.
I think we have stuff to say on insulation and the recycling scheme w.r.t. householders;
We will extend the doorstep recycling service. Problems which need cracking include the system not working so well where streets have small properties with a common access.
Section G: Developing a community-wide approach: Engaging householders, businesses and manufacturers
Climate Change Strategy - big public meeting.
When the City Council has invited people to participate in public debate about climate change, there is always a willing audience although this tends to be mainly activists.
SMART METERING - exciting new results.
In more recent times we have put a lot more effort into engagement with the business community and have found an increasingly positive reaction.
Businesses clearly do want to be seen to be green even if sometimes you sense the real corporate commitment isn’t there.
SHOULD CITE EXPERIAN PLAN
But now is clearly the right time to seek greater commitment and this is what we’ve been doing in Nottingham through a new Carbon Club for large employers and a pledging scheme for the general public via a DEFRA funded awareness campaign in Notts and Derbys called ‘Everybody’s Talking (about climate change).
It is encouraging that large private sector companies (like Boots and Experian in Nottingham) do seem to have taken this agenda on board and have made significant progress.
Our approach is to use peer pressure to try to raise standards further and to use our collective purchasing power to require smaller companies in all our supply chains to raise their own standards.
Long running efforts to engage SMEs have had very limited impact in the absence of customer demand. Now wanting to work through the supply chain.
This is what we want to change. We hope to develop sufficient momentum to start to create new local markets for sustainable products and services and develop a competitive economic advantage for Nottingham in so doing.
What we’re also keen to do is to demonstrate community leadership through practical action, e.g. Extending our popular tram system (and introducing a workplace parking levy to help pay for it and help limit demand for car access), creating the first zero carbon zone within an established inner city community (Ozone in the Meadows), adopting the Merton Rule for renewable energy within major developments (next week) and developing more low/zero carbon buildings like the autonomous Colwick Adventure Centre (opened earlier this year).
Section H: Devolving your responsibilities: Using the powers granted to you in the Local Government White Paper to encourage the community to take ownership of their carbon emissions
The Local Government White Paper makes the case for the establishment of Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) in large cities to help reduce carbon emissions more dramatically than through simply insulating people’s homes better.
This is a more fundamental change that involves rethinking the rules of the energy market and providing services like heat and light rather than just gas or electricity.
We’ve been involved in this process for many years through our municipal company Enviro-Energy which runs one of the largest district heating and private wire electricity networks in the country, via a waste to energy plant. [Simon - Section g, Enviro-energy I believe is the largest in the Uk of its kind might be worth mentioning + escos are govt flavour of the month so again perhaps reinforce the strength of our own. Correct analysis on where we need to take ours.]
Over 4,500 homes in the inner city district of St.Ann’s are served by the district heating scheme, along with 150 business customers. [Paul F - District Heating – additions – 250 Metropolitan Housing Trust flats now on site at Canal Street, opposite Capital One. Their developer/contractor unhappy about difficulty in introducing, including expense. Without MHT’s influence they would not undertake district heating, are not going away to repeat in their own right and are not recommending it to other developers.]
The challenge for us is deciding what to do to extend the network to more customers (which involves significant capital expenditure) and to identify additional sources of low or zero carbon energy to utilise.
We also want to see whether the company can provide energy services that are separate to district heating and private wire.
Section I: Overcoming the NIMBY mentality: Encouraging acceptance of wind turbines and solar panels
There is a NIMBY issue on incineration which is contagious - other towns won’t do it so there’s resistance to expanding ours. Builds on fears generated by local Friends of the Earth even though a PCT report says there is no health risk.
On wind turbines, Dundee have gained acceptance for 2 at a tyre factory.
We now have outline planning permission for one as part of a national landmarks lottery bid.
We are however actively seeking sites for medium – large scale wind turbines on our own land.
We don’t advocate micro wind turbines in dense urban locations as the wind is too turbulent in most cases for them to work sufficiently well. I think it’s churlish to discourage those who want to get involved.
We do believe the B&Q wind turbines are genuinely too noisy. [Paul F - B&Q Windsave – Still being promoted and previous technical problems seem resolved. Despite promotion in October/Nov 2006 none fitted in Nottingham by Mark Insulations their local installer up to March 2007. Has been widely said it was great publicity for B&Q off the back of renewables. Mark Insulations have seemingly fitted very few – nearest NG25!]
I’m not aware of objections to solar panels; (Has the radical drop in PV panels prices actually materialised?) [Paul F - Photo Voltaics – Prices - Still 20-30 year pay back so not viable to achieve financial return. Worsened by recent cut in renewable grants to £2,500 max, where previously £3,000 per kW installed so £15,000 were being achieved. Current guide price after grant of basic 1kW output being £5.50 [check] after grant removed.]
(I imagine solar vacuum tubes are better than PV panels) - Encouragingly, Nottingham Energy Partnership have found that following installation of 100 solar thermal systems that there seems to be increased local interest from friends, relatives and neighbours. [Paul F - Solar Thermal – Solar Save of Sandiacre who we use and will be with us at the Green Festival have seen a pick up in trade due to primarily visual presence. As a normal plumbing company they are installing heating systems “solar ready”, to spread expense of new boiler/system over time. Panels can be fitted later and allows secondary marketing. Seems excellent way forward for integrated plumbing companies who do heating and solar.]
We’ve also found through recent consultation that larger wind turbines and other technologies can be acceptable to urban communities if accompanied by sufficient information and engagement.
We’re looking more widely at the opportunities to develop renewable energy technologies across Greater Nottingham. GROUND SOURCE HEAT PUMPING.
It’s important to highlight though that renewables are only a part of the solution (particularly in urban areas where demand is great and space and supply e.g. of biofuels is limited) and that much bigger wins are to be had from reducing energy demand and improving energy efficiency.
Section J: Developing close and productive links between officers and members
I could do loads on this but it would be pretty general; would probably do City Council climate change overview and application of 7 ways of working through service planning;
Following a major scrutiny exercise on climate change in Nottingham, officers and members have worked together closely to develop new plans, new ambition and to innovate (eg. video link with American city mayor during, Council debate last October; two day High Level, Low Carbon study tour for 20 members and senior officers).
key lesson AND OBJECTIVE is the importance of embedding sustainable development into the everyday operations of the council as we are trying to do; rathetr than treat this as an ad-on priority.
SO DO DIAGRAM OF CITY COUNCIL POLICIES
THEN APPLY TO CORE CITIES
THEN DO PUBLIC SERVICES REFORM FAN DIAGRAM
Separation of members and officers is slightly bizarre cos I find officers who have things of value to say that help the politics;
And the Council is the members so it’s inevitable that we have views on how things should be done, sometimes drawing upon trained experience elsewhere.
The most important value of the members is the mandate - allows decisive action as opposed to more consultation.
The biggest risk from members is the capacity of the organisation becoming constrained by what members can feel they can manage.
PART C - SETTING UP THE CONFERENCE AND CONCLUSION
Section K: Conclusions
We need to apply ourselves today to making a difference.
What remains true is that if change is to be achieved it must be through the political process.
[The biggest faults of the Green movement is - not using the political process, so holding values, but preaching from the sidelines. Also believing in gestures rather than systems.]
The same disciplines applied to creating more jobs, reducing operation waiting times and improving schools will have to be used to reduce our carbon-dioxide emissions levels.
It will be done all the more effectively through a partnership with national Government.
BUT NATIONAL GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE TO MANAGE RISK AND GOVERN RATHER THAN BE RISK AVERSE
We now need to expand on the commitments already made by the public, business and other sectors to agree a way forward for Nottingham as a whole.
AND WE NEED TO LEARN - PLATFORM FOR THE PROGRAMME FOR THE REST OF THE DAY
An immensely practical agenda for making progress. Ends.
[Notes to support speech given on 2007-05-23; last updated 2007-07-07]
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