WEALDEN DISTRICT COUNCIL

Climate Change Carbon Footprint Recycling Waste in Wealden District Council

KYOTO PROTOCOL - With reference to the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 of which the UK is a signatory, the Government submitted an initial GHG submission in November 2006.

This report was calculated on base year emissions of: 779,904,144 tonnes of CO2 as stated by the UK in its initial report. Of this 75.7% percent was CO2, followed by methane (CH4) at 13.3% percent and nitrous oxide (N2O) at 8.8% percent. A revised figure of 779,538.55 Gg CO2 equivalent followed.

The energy sector accounted for 78.4 per cent of the total GHG emissions in the base year that decreased by 14.6% percent between the base year (1990) and 2004. It follows that heating and electricity for homes, services and factories (living) should be a target as should transport, including marine. 

CLIMATE CHANGE & THE LACK OF SUSTAINABILITY IN THE WEALDEN DISTRICT

What is sustainability and why is it important for all councils to push for energy sustainability?

Wealden's Sustainability Strategy

According to their website: this Council's sustainability strategy provides a framework to ensure sustainability is included in all its strategies, plans, policies and actions. Unfortunately their strategy is not published in easy form, only as a .pdf file, so designed to thwart easy access contrary to transparency in local government rules. East access would be to publish as a .html document, a universal format that the public might read without a decoding mechanism that is expensive and more for professional use.

According to their website: their vision is to meet the needs of all people in Wealden and promote sustainable prosperity for everyone whilst respecting the limits of our environment and resources and ensuring that they are maintained for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations.

It all sounds positive, but is it all talk and paper shuffling? It looks that way to us!

Wealden's Climate Change Policy and Action Plan

This Council's climate change policy (pdf) together with the climate change action plan (pdf) sets out this Council's commitment to tackling the causes and effects of climate change. According to their website their action plan outlines how the Council plans to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions and how they will work with partners and the community to help reduce emissions across the district.

We have seen no evidence of any direct action other than a legal challenge in the High Court as to nitrogen levels in the Ashdown Forest and their Core Strategy Plan. While that is something, it is all negative when we need positive action, otherwise the area will remain short of affordable housing and new housing will be more of the same that helped to cause global warming.

Council Energy Certificates - Vicarage Lane Energy Certificate for 2011 (pdf) The Nottingham Declaration

Wealden District Council has signed The Nottingham Declaration - On Climate Change (external link), a high level commitment to the community on trying to limit climate change and they have produced a greenhouse gas emissions report (PDF) in accordance with new guidance issued by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that is now defunct.

For further information or to make a comment or complaint about the perceived lack of action, please contact their Sustainability Officer or the Leader of the Council and their planning chairpersons, and/or their Chief Executive (Charles Lant @ 2018).

Climate Change Act 2008 CHAPTER 27 (26 November 2008) - The target for 2050: 

(1) It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline.

(2) “The 1990 baseline” means the aggregate amount of —

(a) net UK emissions of carbon dioxide for that year, and

(b) net UK emissions of each of the other targeted greenhouse gases for the year that is the base year for that gas.

CLIMATE CHANGE ACTS

The Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006, followed by the Climate Change Act 2008 comprises the current legislation that Wealden must abide by. These Acts demand that Wealden put in place a workable plan and encourage development of sustainable housing and transport. These Acts are in response to United Nations targets to fend off a global catastrophe before it is too late.

A workable plan involves making sure that houses, transport and workplaces in the Wealden area reduce their carbon footprint by 3.375% a year to get back to 80% below the 1990 baseline by the year 2050.

This figure is based on the assumption that the "Baseline" houses, retailers and factories in 1990 have not increased or decreased their energy requirement. If that so, then we need to work out how many new houses, retailers and factories have been built since 1990 - and how many more will be built by 2050 - then add them together.

It follows that if we are to reduce our national carbon footprint, 

THE INDEPENDENT 14 JULY 2016 - Campaigners called for 'urgent reassurance from the new government' that the fight against climate change and pollution will not be 'abandoned'

The decision to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change has been variously condemned as “plain stupid”, “deeply worrying” and “terrible” by politicians, campaigners and experts.

One of Theresa May’s first acts as Prime Minister was to move responsibility for climate change to a new Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

Only on Monday, Government advisers had warned of the need to take urgent action to prepare the UK for floods, droughts, heatwaves and food shortages caused by climate change.

The news came after the appointment of Andrea Leadsom – who revealed her first question to officials when she became Energy Minister last year was “Is climate change real? – was appointed as the new Environment Secretary.

And, after former Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd announced in November that Britain was going to “close coal” by 2025, Ms Leadsom later asked the coal industry to help define what this actually meant.

Former Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeted: “DECC abolition just plain stupid. Climate not even mentioned in new deptartment title. Matters because departments shape priorities, shape outcomes.”

Greenpeace said it was concerned that the new Government did not view climate change as a serious threat..

John Sauven, the campaign group's executive director, said: “The voting record and affiliation with climate sceptics of key cabinet appointees are deeply worrying.

"They show a lack of understanding posed by climate change to the UK and the world. If we are to continue to have a key global role in environmental action, we need urgent reassurance from the new government that the hard won progress on climate and renewables targets, air pollution and the protection of wildlife will not be sidelined or abandoned in the Brexit negotiations.”

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas described the decision as “deeply worrying”.

“Climate change is the biggest challenge we face, and it must not be an afterthought for the Government,” she said.

“Dealing with climate change requires a dedicated Minister at the Cabinet table. To throw it into the basement of another Whitehall department, looks like a serious backwards step.”

She said she would work with any Minister “willing to take climate change seriously”, but added she would seek to hold Government to account for “any backpeddling on our climate change commitments”.

Craig Bennett, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, pointed out that a major report into the effects of climate change on Britain had made clear that it was already happening.

“This is shocking news. Less than a day into the job and it appears that the new Prime Minister has already downgraded action to tackle climate change, one of the biggest threats we face,” he said.

“This week the Government’s own advisors warned of ever growing risks to our businesses, homes and food if we don’t do more to cut fossil fuel pollution. 

“If Theresa May supports strong action on climate change, as she’s previously said, it’s essential that this is made a top priority for the new business and energy department and across government.”

And Stephen Devlin, an environmental economist at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), said the department’s abolition was “a terrible move by our new Prime Minister”.

He said it appeared to signal “a troubling de-prioritisation of climate change by this government”.

“Tackling climate change is an era-defining challenge that must direct and determine what industries we develop, what transport infrastructure we construct, how we manage our land and what our diets look like. It requires a central co-ordinated strategy; if we leave it to the afterthoughts of other departments we will fail,” he said.

“This reshuffle risks dropping climate change from the policy agenda altogether – a staggering act of negligence for which we will all pay the price.”

He called on Ms May to reaffirm the Government’s commitment to the 2008 Climate Change Act, which he described as a “world-leading piece of legislation”.

This commits the UK to an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and is “one of few remaining silver linings in UK environmental policy”, Mr Devlin said. 

A letter by DECC’s permanent secretary, Alex Chisholm, to staff in his department, which was leaked to Civil Service World, confirmed that its responsibilities were being transferred to the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, under its new Secretary, Greg Clark.

"We can make sure we have the 21st century infrastructure we need. Business will have a strong champion in government," he wrote. 

"Energy and climate change will continue in a single department ensuring efficient paths to carbon reduction.”

A spokesman for DECC told The Independent: "Nothing is changing. The commitment [to dealing with climate change] is still there."

It pretty soon becomes clear that new-builds will have to be virtually zero carbon and existing houses and factories should aim to reduce energy consumption to give us some slack. Houses that are energy self-sufficient will not look like the houses Wealden's planners are used to approving.

Buildings that are modified to harvest solar energy will change in appearance somewhat out of necessity - but this is typically permitted development - and if it is not, the above Acts tend to support what is, or will be necessary to improve existing stocks in line with a workable plan.

Strangely, this approach would also protect the Ashdown Forest, that at the moment appears to be causing local authorities such as Lewes District Council and Natural England a headache.

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-change

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/introduction

https://www.sustainablehomes.co.uk/

https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/the-uks-industrial-strategy

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-change

http://www.wealden.gov.uk/Wealden/Residents/Environment_and_Pollution/Sustainability/Policy_Climate_Change_and_Sustainability.aspx

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/

COUNCILLORS SERVING IN 2017 INTO 2018