4 minute read
Festival Keynote - Pam Smith
It’s fair to say that we are in unprecedented times and how we respond collectively is really important. In Newcastle we were the first to declare - across the university, the council, and the hospital - a climate emergency. We have set our net zero target for 2030, and have been recognised as one of the leading local authorities for tackling climate change.
Every year we emit around 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. We have a responsibility to drive down these emissions. It’s no exaggeration to say that we are putting all our efforts into making sure that we continue to tackle climate change at a local level, whilst trying to model what a city should look and feel like, and we have a real leadership role to play in making sure that we have energy security and inclusive economic growth which integrates green jobs.
Somebody asked me the other day “What does a green job look like?” and my response is “a job!”. Every part of our economy needs to be green and if it is, then it will impact on those inequalities. The two go hand in hand: we want a green economy, we need energy security, and we need to make sure that we drive down those inequalities using green technology, green ways of working, and designing with our community - this isn’t something that we should do to them.
How communities and neighbourhoods work and thrive is critical to our strategy - but it’s also about designing products and services that will help residents and businesses behave and live in a more sustainable way. We take the idea of a circular economy seriously, and want to involve people in Newcastle to develop it through becoming a test bed for innovation, but rooted in reality, so we are working in partnership with universities and college to establish a centre of excellence for low carbon training. We want to become a magnet for green growth and to see Newcastle maintain a first-mover advantage working on green and blue energy. We have natural assets: a tidal river, ports, the coast, and Dogger Bank, one of the biggest wind farms on our coastline, is being developed. We were there at the First Industrial Revolution leading the way, we want to also lead the Fourth Green Industrial Revolution, but ensuring our people feel involved and are part of it.
We want to redesign the city for people, with fewer cars. We want to build in low carbon heat networks. We want to put sustainability and green credentials into city planning, into its spatial plan, to embed it into our buildings and how we connect our city. We want to use our resources in a more sustainable way. But we also seek acceleration funding for our work - Newcastle secured around £30m to decarbonise our public sector and domestic estate in the past year and £10m to improve the thermal efficiency of homes, including installation of low- or zero-carbon heating systems and ground source heat pumps.
We work to be an exemplar as council and city by focusing these funds on things we can change quickly, but also recognise some things take longer and should be integrated into policy. We seek to tackle inequality and climate change at the same time, considering them two sides of the same coin and not as separate initiatives. Our green agenda is linked to inequality and we work to ensure that capital programmes across the city have embedded net zero considerations and built-in social value. Being healthy and sustainable means tackling inequalities and poverty simultaneously.
Pam Smith, Chief Executive of Newcastle City Council
Pam Smith is the Chief Executive of Newcastle City Council and joins at a great time as the city seeks to emerge strongly from the pandemic. Passionate about people, communities and neighbourhoods, Pam is eager to work with residents and colleagues from across the region to achieve the best outcomes for the people of Newcastle; leveraging the opportunities that levelling up and devolution offer to secure outstanding schools, excellent jobs, and high-quality homes to make Newcastle one of the best places in the world to grow up, work and, live.
