Local Government Interview
The need to integrate climate change and air quality By Stephen Cirell, independent consultant specialising in local authority projects and host of the Environment Journal Podcast.
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his is an important time for climate change and global warming. More so than ever before, the penny is dropping with the public that climate change is happening and something has to be urgently done about it. Those in the industry have been working away on this for many years. The IPCC has published five separate reports indicating the scientific basis for the concerns. Its data has helped inform much Governmental policy throughout the world. In the UK, the Climate Change Act 2008 was passed 13 years ago, legally committing the country to reach a target to reduce greenhouse gases. Last year that target was increased to carbon neutrality or net zero carbon by 2050 against a 1990 baseline.
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Under the intergovernmental conferences - where global deals are hammered out on climate change – successive meetings have raised the stakes on what needs to be done. Air quality is currently seen as more of a niche area. Cases such as the tragic death of Ella Adoo Kissi Debrah - the 13 year old girl from London whose death made history by being the first time that a Coroner had found that air pollution had made a material contribution to a death – have helped raise awareness, but air quality has not yet received the publicity that climate change has. As a result, there is more acceptance that climate change needs sorting out and a greater sense of urgency amongst the public. Over 300 local authorities in the UK have now declared a climate
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emergency, together with the Westminster, Holyrood and Senedd national governments. Most make clear that climate change needs urgent action and commits to taking steps towards that goal. An example might be a commitment to be net zero carbon for the Council’s own estate, vehicles and functions by 2030. Such pledges are normally followed by the development of a Climate Emergency Action Plan. I have worked on many of these programmes over the past three years. These normally detail the pledge made and indicate how the energy efficiency of buildings will be improved, vehicles transferred to electric and renewable energy measures installed. However, few if any such action plans make provision
