Road map informs carbon challenge

Planning, 8 May 2009

Chancellor Alastair Darling's announcement about the UK's carbon budgets last month received relatively little media attention. Yet it has profound implications for public policy. The budgets reflect the severity of the environmental "debt" that is driving climate change.

Their policy significance will only become fully apparent when the road map for a low-carbon UK is published in September. This will set targets for individual sectors, including housing and transport. The heat and energy strategy will play a major role in shaping these targets and a transport strategy is due to be published in the summer. Meanwhile, the statutory instruments to implement the budgets will be in place by next month.

This new policy landscape is still littered with huge question marks. When asked about the role of decentralised energy, Committee on Climate Change chief executive David Kennedy described it as "a not insignificant opportunity" that has still to be assessed.

What this might mean in terms of retrofitting and designing urban areas will be shaped by local authorities and partnerships. It is vital therefore that regional, city and local partnerships take a lead in devising their own road maps towards minimising carbon emissions and that the national road map encourages innovation and diversity in place-based responses.

The network of European metropolitan regions METREX recently published a Mitigation Manual based on the greenhouse gas regional inventory project process developed by Sebastian Carney, based at the University of Manchester. This tool is being used by a number of cities and the state of California to develop their carbon inventories. Its adoption in Glasgow and the Clyde Valley was recognised in the recent Scottish awards for quality in planning.

The tool highlights the fact that each place has different sectoral potential to deliver cuts in emissions. For example, the transport sector will have varying capacity for modal switching and there will be different opportunities for renewable energy development.

At the same time, the relationship between mitigation and adaptation must also be assessed in relation to actual places. The extent of adaptation required anywhere will depend on the level of cuts in greenhouse gas that are made in the next few years. However, places have particular physical, social and economic capacities to respond to climate change. Planners therefore need to work to reduce the vulnerability of places and communities.

Research Councils UK's adaptation and resilience to climate change programme was launched this week. It brings together a number of research projects that have a common focus on the adaptation of the built environment. The RTPI is a direct stakeholder in two projects.

These are the ARCADIA project, led by Newcastle University, which aims to use integrated assessment to better understand the vulnerability of urban areas and develop policy responses. The SNACC project on neighbourhood adaptation for a changing climate, led by the University of the West of England, will also be identifying effective, practical and acceptable means of suburban redesign.

Jenny Crawford is RTPI head of research. The Mitigation Manual is available at PlanningResource. co.uk/doc. For more information on Research Councils UK's adaptation and resilience to climate change programme, please visit www.ukcip-arcc.org.uk