Amid the furore surrounding the closure of London streets by the Extinction Rebellion movement and the wave of school strikes sparked by Swedish teenage environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg, it is possible to have missed a potentially more far-reaching recent shift in the climate change debate. A growing number of UK councils have chosen to declare a climate change emergency, following in the footsteps of cities across the world, from Los Angeles to Adelaide – many of them months before the House of Commons finally caught on at the start of May.
The rationale behind the declaration movement is that if national governments are not doing enough to respond to climate change, cities have a moral duty to pick up the mantle. Currently, 59 councils in the UK have made the declaration, 42 of which have set a target to be carbon-neutral by 2030. All are committed to honouring the commitments made in the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C.
According to those behind the idea, local authorities that declare a climate emergency cannot then rest on their laurels – it has to be the precursor to a rapid review of strategic policies to ensure that the council has a means of delivering its ambition. So what impact are the climate change emergency declarations likely to have on local planning?
Of course, the act of making a declaration does not in and of itself change policy. But Hugh Ellis, policy director at the Town and Country Planning Association, says the councils have been given little choice but to do something due to the inaction of central government. "This is a government that abolished the Department of Energy and Climate Change," he says. "They continue to do nothing – nothing – to support local action on climate change. It’s crazy, staggering [and] scandalous."
Paul Swinney, director of policy and research at urban policy research unit Centre for Cities, says: "Local government is taking the lead because national government has left the building. Climate change is one of the big issues national government should be focusing on and they’re not, because Brexit has taken over everything."
Ben Kite, managing director of environmental consultancy EPR, argues that the declarations will still be significant even if specific policies do not change. "What it hopefully does is create an expectation both within an authority and externally that those policies that are already in place and relate to climate change will have an elevated priority," he says. "So, if a planning decision is being made or something goes to appeal, those policies will carry a bit more weight."
Councils tackling climate change
In terms of the councils themselves, many of those that have made declarations have previously taken significant strides in addressing climate change with local policies. It is also very early days. The first UK councils to make such declarations – Bristol and Manchester – only did so at the end of last year.
In the case of Manchester, at least, the declaration was made following extensive research. At the beginning of 2018, the city council sought advice from the University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre, a highly regarded climate change research organisation. The authority asked the centre to investigate how quickly the city needed to act if it was to play its part in limiting temperature rises to 1.5°C. "They came back and said we needed to be carbon-neutral by 2038," says councillor Angeliki Stogia, who is leading on the initiative.
The declaration was made in November last year, with a "first stab at an action plan on how we can do this" produced in March, according to Stogia, who adds that the ultimate aim is to follow through by amending Manchester’s local plan policies. To that end, over the summer the council will hold a series of "conversations" with interested parties in the city, including the general public, in advance of formal consultation on local plan changes.
"This summer we are going to review our planning policies as we review our local plan," says Stogia. "Obviously, we will have to look at more sustainable building methods and more sustainable buildings. We are going to look at the residential design standards guidelines and see how we can make them even better. We know they’re already among the best in the UK, but we also know we need to up our game. The other thing we’re looking at is transport and sustainable travel options – improving walking and cycling, better public transport and so on. That will mean fewer people using cars. We want less congestion on the road."
However, Stogia admits that revising a local plan takes time – a precious commodity. Speaking generally rather than about Manchester per se, Lucy Wood, environmental planning director at planning and design consultancy Barton Willmore, agrees. "It’s a whole can of worms because we know what a lengthy process it is to get a local plan adopted," she says. "I don’t necessarily think that planning policy is going to be ready in time [to hit climate change targets]."
As a result, Manchester City Council will continue to press ahead with carbon-reduction initiatives in the interim. For instance, cross-sector partnership body the Manchester Climate Change Agency is working on a plan aimed at ensuring the city’s housing associations become carbon-neutral by 2038, while Chris Oglesby, chief executive of developer Bruntwood, is on the board of the agency and is working with private sector property firms on a similar initiative.
Oxford City Council made its declaration in January. Councillor Tom Hayes says the authority had already been working on measures to address climate change for years, but joining the global declaration movement offered an opportunity to further stimulate efforts. The council’s beefed-up local plan, submitted at the end of March, includes a number of measures aimed at reducing emissions. Perhaps most eye-catching is a policy that, should the plan be approved, will require developers to achieve a 40 per cent improvement in carbon emissions compared with building regulations, even if building regulations are tightened up. From 2026, this requirement increases to 50 per cent and from 2030 the requirement is zero carbon.
A third example can be found in Newcastle, which made its declaration in April. The city council said in a statement that this "confirms Newcastle’s commitment to take climate change seriously", with a climate change and energy delivery board set up "to work towards a clear plan to ensure that Newcastle is carbon-neutral by 2030".
For now, details on how planning is expected to contribute are limited, although the council’s statement says its core strategy and urban core plan, which were adopted in 2015, already contain "a range of policies aimed to address the impact of climate change". It has also submitted its development and allocations plan for examination, which it claims "will also strengthen our policies relating to climate change" when adopted. In addition, the council has agreed to "work with partners across the city and region to deliver the new goal through all relevant strategies and plans".
Ellis says these declarations "signal a sea change in the politics of climate change and that is brilliant". However, time will tell the extent to which they will make a practical difference. "It is only meaningful if local authorities do a hell of a lot more than change their lights to LED," he adds. "This requires root and branch reprioritisation of what local authorities do."
