Climate change action plan: Allerdale

Climate Change Action Plan: Global Implications of climate change

There has been wide debate about the causes of global warming. What is clear is that global temperatures are rising and the scientific consensus is now that human activities, including population growth, significantly affect climate change. The 20th century was the warmest century in the last 1,000 years with 0.6°C warming. The 1990s was the warmest decade in Central England since records began in the 1660s. The main influence on global climate is the emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. At present, about 36.4 billion tonnes of MtCO2 (2019 www.globalcarbonatlas.org) is emitted globally each year, mainly through burning coal, oil and gas for energy. Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 200 years have trapped more energy in the lower atmosphere, altering our climate.

As well as the predicted temperature rise, we are experiencing changing rainfall, more stormy weather and more extreme weather events. The melting of polar ice caps will lead to an increase in sea levels and extensive flooding of low-lying areas of land. It has also been predicted that in future centuries the Gulf Stream may slow down and result in dramatic cooling of North West Europe. Predicted global impacts include flooding, drought, increased disease, famine and conflict or war because of water or food. Two overall strategies can help address these issues: mitigation and adaptation:

Mitigation– this refers to actions that reduce human contribution to the causes of climate change. This means reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), through energy efficiency and using alternative forms of transport and energy.

Mitigation is important in the long term as it is only by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions that we can hope to minimise human-induced climate change. Many of the measures to help reduce emissions may also have other benefits such as saving money and encouraging a more sustainable society.

Adaptation- addresses the impacts and opportunities resulting from a changing climate. Irrespective of the success of mitigation efforts, there will still be some degree of unavoidable climate change. This stems from our historic greenhouse gas emissions and the persistence of these gases in the atmosphere.

Governments around the world have pledged to reduce their emissions to limit the degree of warming. The most recent was the 2016 Paris Agreement in which world leaders committed to take action to keep a rise in global temperatures this century well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. In climate models, this 2°C rise by the end of the century represents sizeable cuts in global emissions.

The National Context of climate change

The Climate Change Committee (an independent non-departmental public body, formed under the Climate Change Act 2008 to advise the United Kingdom and devolved Governments and Parliaments on tackling and preparing for climate change) has advised that the UK government sets its Sixth Carbon Budget (i.e. the legal limit for UK emissions of greenhouse gases over the years 2033-37) to require a reduction in UK emissions of 78% by 2035 relative to 1990 levels, a 63% reduction from 2019 as an appropriate contribution to the UK’s Net-Zero target. In England, there is no overall plan on how local authorities fit into delivering Net Zero although the Climate and Ecology Bill seeks to address this.

Over half of the UK’s emissions cuts are dependent on purchasing decisions, behaviours and habits of individuals, businesses and organisations.

Local authorities are currently constrained by a lack of detailed benchmarking information, government targets and clear trajectories for decarbonising activities for energy, buildings, transport and land use. Hence this Action Plan will need to be regularly reviewed as targets, pathways and funding streams are created.

Climate change is a global issue which also has local impacts. By the end of the 21st century, all areas of the UK are projected to be warmer, more so in summer than in winter with hotter, dryer summer months, wetter winters and a change in the pattern of extreme weather events. This projected temperature rise in the UK is consistent with future warming globally. By 2070, in the high emission scenario, this range amounts to 0.9°C to 5.4°C in summer, and 0.7°C to 4.2°C in winter.

In Cumbria, it is estimated that the average daily temperature will rise between 1 and 2 degrees by 2050 and that summer rainfall will reduce by 15% but that winter rainfall will increase by between 15% and 30%. The Allerdale area has experienced severe adverse flooding events over the last decade with millions being spent locally to mitigate possible future flooding events.

The Joint Cumbria Public Health Strategy 2019 provides the following priority areas which are addressed in Allerdale’s Climate Change Action Plan:

Green Spaces and Biodiversity

The co-benefits of protecting nature sites and creating new rich green space include better mental and physical health for local people, greater resilience to future climate change extremes and more resilient food production

Some example of local authority work in this action plan include:

• Protection and restoration of nature through nature recovery strategies
• Carbon sequestration through nature-based solutions such as restoring peatland, considerate land management and additional tree planting
• Habitat restoration and green infrastructure growth
• Wildflower verges, reduced pesticide used and changed mowing patterns

Air Quality

By supporting low carbon infrastructure and transport initiatives, Allerdale Borough Council can reduce resource use, reduce CO2E emissions and improve air quality. Hence improving health and wellbeing of our residents and protecting the planet.

Our action plan addresses air quality in its sections; ‘growing the low carbon economy’ and ‘decarbonising transport’

• Support development of safe walking and cycle routes
• Rapid transition to low carbon vehicle in our fleets and EV charging points for our communities
• Developing interventions that reduce the need to travel

Climate Change

Slowing, stopping and then removing the greenhouse gases from our atmosphere is an ambitious target – achievable only with joined up thinking and commitment across all areas of local government and our communities. Local Councils are an indispensable partner in reaching the national target of net zero by 2050.

• Seek funding and partnership activities to support re-skilling, retraining and local research
• Work with partners on promotion of retrofitting properties to reduce energy use and emissions
• Supporting partnerships to bring green jobs to Allerdale

Waste reduction

We cannot easily recycle our way out of the strain on natural resources and the quantity of waste that is currently produced locally. New solutions to reduce single-use items and unnecessary products that soon end up as waste are needed.

• Awareness campaigns to lead to minimisation of residual waste
• Promote re-use and recycling initiatives
• Create additional recyclate streams to use waste as a resource
• PR Campaigns to raise awareness of possibilities
• Look at our own procurement policies to ensure that ‘whole life costs’ are considered in the value of products

Former Allerdale Borough Council’s role in partnerships and with the public, places us at the heart of the climate conversation and in developing and replicating local solutions. However, these levers alone are not sufficient to deliver our Carbon Neutral ambitions, due to gaps in key powers that prevent systems-scale or holistic approaches, policy and funding barriers, and a lack of capacity and skills caused by funding cuts. Figure 2 below shows local authorities’ leverage and influence through their services, planning and enforcement roles, housing, regeneration, economic development activities, education and skills services and investments.

Growing a Zero and Low Carbon Economy – within its sphere of influence as a local authority we seek to influence around a third of the area’s emissions through place shaping, partnerships and leadership. The Council’s Procurement Strategy makes reference to environment and sustainability in a purchasing context. Ongoing work with the other Cumbrian local authorities through EPiC (Effective Procurement in Cumbria) should help establish a consistent approach in helping to address climate change across Cumbria through sustainable procurement.

Reducing consumption and emissions

Council staff are encouraged to switch off computer equipment when not in use. Allerdale House was designed to be energy efficient though further improvements can be made. Audits for energy performance certificates are ongoing in relevant Council buildings. It is a legal requirement to display energy certificates in large public sector buildings. Work to reduce fuel poverty is ongoing. Inspections on homes under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System to assess decent homes includes energy efficiency.

Decarbonising transport

The staff travel policy requires staff to make efficient journeys and consider public transport. Close working with partners has led to an extensive cycle network in West Cumbria. The Council currently promotes a scheme to encourage staff to cycle to work. Electric vehicles have been recently purchased for some Council Services. COVID19 has led to a change in travel and working patterns which has massively decreased road miles. Many of these adaptations will be retained for the future.

Planning to deliver Zero Carbon development

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) sets out that the purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, which involves three overarching interdependent objectives – economic, social and environmental. These objectives are delivered through the preparation and implantation of plans and the application of policies in the NPPF. The environmental objective includes mitigating and adapting to climate change. Section 14 of the NPPF relates specifically to meeting the challenge of climate change, flooding and coastal change. Our Local Plan is consistent with the NPPF.

Building Control are ensuring that new developments have appropriate thermal insulation as required by the current Building Regulations and are helping construction companies build environmentally-friendly homes.

Reducing waste

Allerdale Borough Council is delivering a recycling rate of 34% with a particular focus on the diversion of biodegradable municipal waste that was previously sent to landfill, and contributed to greenhouse gases from the landfill site. Ongoing work with the Cumbria Strategic Waste Partnership assists in waste reduction and recycling.

The recycling facilities for staff in Council offices in main offices include cans and bottles in addition to paper. The design and print tender specifications will include the need for use of recycled paper. Electronic versions of meeting papers are now the standard method of distribution. Old computer equipment is reused or recycled. Water coolers supplied from the mains are present in most Council offices which reduce the need for staff to use bottled water.

Restoring nature

The Council’s AONB team manage the Solway Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The Parks and Open Spaces team manages the Council’s two nature reserves at Harrington and Siddick Pond with help from community groups, and through an extensive programme for volunteers and education. The management plans for these areas are regularly reviewed to increase biodiversity, create carbon sinks and help slow run- off of water.

A Shoreline Management Plan for the North West of England and North Wales has been developed. This sets out the long-term direction for managing risk to our coastline. The Cumbria Coastal Strategy has recently been developed and is currently going through the approval process with all partners (Spring 2021).

At this point we are reviewing the data available to the Council to establish current baselines. The Council is participating in the project to determine the level of need to decarbonise public sector buildings in the North West, funded by the Local Energy Hub and government, which is intended to lead to a programme of activity based on the identification of urgent need for remedial action, and through the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership we are addressing the outcomes of the carbon audit for Cumbria. We recognise we need to both understand the scale of the need through accurate current data and prioritise our activities accordingly.

Local authorities do not currently have to monitor or report reductions in their own or area emissions. This will change as the Environment Bill and Climate and Ecology Bill pass through their due Parliamentary process.

The Climate Change Committee recommends that local authority action plans should state how progress will be monitored and reported back to partnerships and residents, along with methods of ongoing engagement. The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny’s 2020 recommendations give us guidelines for self-scrutiny.

General guiding principles are:

Measure and report Scopes 1 and 2 as a minimum. Scope 1 is direct GHG emissions from sources owned or controlled by the local authority, for example emissions from boilers and vehicles. Scope 2 accounts for emissions of purchased electricity consumed by the local authority.

Define and report on Scope 3 as actively as possible. Scope 3 includes indirect emissions from wider supply chains, emissions from the use of local authority services, contracted out services and investments. Local authorities should assess the significance of emissions and level of control they have over different types of Scope 3 emissions and focus on the areas with the most emissions over which they have the most control or influence.

See the Terminology section for a definition of the scopes.

Work gathering baseline data is ongoing and methodology will be improved to provide more accurate and specific information.

From the latest figures available (BEIS 2017) the greenhouse gases emissions (excluding removals from Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry – LULUCF) which originated in Allerdale were 629.1 ktCO2, with just over a third of this being attributable to industrial and commercial fuel use (289.4 ktCO2), alongside roughly equal amounts attributable to domestic energy use (178.2 ktCO2) and transport (181.4 ktCO2). The per capita emissions have fallen between 2005 and 2017 from 13.4 ktCO2 to 6.5 ktCO2.

The data allocates emissions on an “end-user” basis where emissions are distributed according to the point of energy consumption (or point of emission if not energy related). Except for the energy industry, emissions from the production of goods are assigned to where the production takes place. On this basis, emissions from the production of goods which are exported have been included, and emissions from the production of goods which are imported are excluded.

The Allerdale area emissions have been recently benchmarked through work commissioned by the Cumbria Climate Change Working Group, now known as Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership and carried out by Small World Consulting, and summarised as part of a countywide profile in ‘A Carbon Baseline for Cumbria’, 2020 (available via Cumbria Observatory ).

The Tyndall Centre’s (University of Manchester) assessment of a carbon budget for Allerdale as a district (https://carbonbudget.manchester.ac.uk/reports/E07000026) shows that for the area to make its fair contribution to delivering the Paris Agreement's commitment to staying “well below 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C” global temperature rise, then an immediate and rapid programme of decarbonisation is needed. At 2017 CO2 emission levels, Allerdale will exceed the recommended budget available within 8 years from 2020. To stay within the recommended carbon budget Allerdale will, from 2020 onwards, need to achieve average mitigation rates of CO2 from energy of around -11.2% per year. This will require that Allerdale rapidly transitions away from unabated fossil fuel use.

Year    Reduction in Annual Emissions (based on recommended pathway)
2020    35.8%
2025    64.5%
2030    80.4%
2035    89.2%
2040    94.0
2045    96.7%
2050    98.2%
Table 1: Percentage reduction of annual emissions for the recommended CO2 only pathway out to 2050 in relation to 2015

The carbon budgets recommended should be reviewed on a five yearly basis to reflect the most up-to-date science, any changes in global agreements on climate mitigation and progress on the successful deployment at scale of negative emissions technologies.

These budgets do not downscale aviation and shipping emissions from the UK national level. However if these emissions continue to increase as currently envisaged by Government, aviation and shipping will take an increasing share of the UK carbon budget, reducing the available budgets for combined and local authorities. The Tyndall Centre recommends that Allerdale seriously consider strategies for significantly limiting emissions growth from aviation and shipping. This could include interactions with the UK Government or other local authorities and local enterprise partnership discussions on aviation that reflect the need of the carbon budget to limit aviation and shipping emissions growth.

CO2 emissions in the carbon budget related to electricity use from the National Grid in Allerdale are largely dependent upon national government policy and changes to power generation across the country. The Tyndall Centre recommends that Allerdale promote the deployment of low carbon electricity generation within the region and where possible influence national policy on this issue.

The Tyndall Centre also recommends that the LULUCF sector should be managed to ensure CO2 sequestration where possible. The management of LULUCF could also include action to increase wider social and environmental benefits.

This Council’s Climate Change Action Plan is broadly but not specifically grouped into the headers proposed in ‘A blueprint for accelerating climate action and a green recovery at the local level’ (January 2021).

• Growing the Zero and Low Carbon Economy
• Retrofitting homes and buildings to reduce consumption and emissions
• Decarbonising transport
• Planning to deliver Zero Carbon development that protects and enhances nature
• Reducing Waste and Encouraging Sustainable Consumption
• Restoring Nature for all
• Developing local authority funding, governance and accounting systems that are fit for purpose

We also consider the themes fitting within the Council Strategy 2020-2030 and the Cumbria Joint Public Health and Wellbeing Strategy (2019-2029).

This action plan has been developed across Political parties within the Council. Each section is led by different Council members according to their own areas of knowledge and special interest who work as task groups within the Climate Change group. The work is supported and delivered by relevant senior managers and Lead Officers across all departments.

The action plan is a ‘live’ document and will develop over time. The structure is created to enable new actions to be easily added to the numbering system. Completed actions will remain included in the published plan, and will be noted as completed.

Further Government direction and work is needed to carry out detailed appraisals of baseline data and data collection guidelines. Some of our actions and targets will change in line with the Bills currently going through Parliament. These are the Environment Bill, the Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill and the Climate and Ecology Bill. Added to these, the Glasgow COP26 in November this year, will bring new ambitions which will be reflected in future revisions of this action plan.

A climate change action plan cannot be delivered by one person alone, nor solely by Allerdale Borough Council. In order to be carbon neutral, we need to embed climate actions across all functions, policies and aspects of the work with people living, working and visiting the area to achieve these outcomes.

We will be engaging with our communities across the borough to rise up and take action to address what is arguably the most difficult, but most important, challenge of our age.

Bibliography

A blueprint for accelerating climate action and a green recovery at the local level (ADEPT [Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Transport and Planning] , Ashden, Friends of the Earth, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment (Imperial College London), Green Alliance, Greenpeace UK, Local Government Association, London Environment Directors’ Network [LEDNet], Place-based Climate Action Network [PCAN at LSE, University of Edinburgh, University of Leeds and Queens University Belfast] and Solace, January 2021)

So You’ve Declared A Climate Emergency, What Next? (APSE)

The Sixth Carbon Budget for Local Authorities (The Climate Change Committee)

A Carbon Baseline for Cumbria (Small World Consulting)

Setting Climate Commitments for Allerdale (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, March 2021)

Terminology

Below are explanations of some of the terms used in this document.

Net Zero
'A net zero organisation will set and pursue an ambitious 1.5°C aligned science-based target for its full value-chain emissions. Any remaining hard-to-decarbonise emissions can be compensated using certified greenhouse gas removal*.’ (Science Based Targets Initiative)

1. The company will set and pursue an ambitious 1.5°C aligned science-based target for its full value chain emissions

2. The boundary must be global scopes 1, 2 and 3 for the organisation

3. Any remaining hard-to-decarbonise emissions can be compensated with certified greenhouse gas removals (GGR*). These should be restricted to only certified methods of GGR, to increase confidence that the carbon is permanently sequestered. Importantly, the company or organisation should make sure that only truly ‘hard-to-decarbonise’ emissions may be compensated.

* ”There is still much discussion around appropriate GGR methods and the markets for GGRs require significant development in terms of volume, market mechanisms, and certification protocols.”

Carbon Neutral
‘A condition in which during a specified period there has been no net increase in the global emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere as a result of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the subject during the same period’

Zero Carbon
This means that no carbon dioxide emissions are being produced from a product/service e.g. zero-carbon electricity could be provided by a 100% renewable energy supplier.

How do net zero targets differ from science-based targets? Science-based targets set a trajectory for emissions reduction for scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, and do not allow an organisation/company to use offsets to achieve a reduction.

Net zero targets bring in a new aspect of compensating for those residual emissions using greenhouse gas removals. Greenhouse gas removals take remaining emissions from the atmosphere and permanently sequester them.

It is important to note that organisations/companies are unlikely to achieve a net zero target without large reductions in their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, as the greenhouse gas removal market is immature.

The first step is to measure your company’s scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and set a 1.5°C aligned science-based target for your own operations and value chain. You can then consider the options for setting a target to go further, bringing together your internal stakeholders and identifying whether a net zero or carbon neutral target is best for your organization/company.

Scopes 1, 2 and 3
‘Scopes’ are defined as emissions broken down into three categories by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol in order to better understand the source.

Scope 1 – All Direct Emissions from the activities of an organisation or under their control. Including fuel combustion on site such as gas boilers, fleet vehicles and air-conditioning leaks.

Scope 2 – Indirect Emissions from electricity purchased and used by the organisation. Emissions are created during the production of the energy and eventually used by the organisation.

Scope 3 – All Other Indirect Emissions from activities of the organisation, occurring from sources that they do not own or control. These are usually the greatest share of the carbon footprint, covering emissions associated with business travel, procurement, waste and water.