Planning and COP26 The planner’s role in delivering COP26 goals

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PLANNING AND COP26

Th e planner’s role in delivering COP26 goals

By Laura Edgar

For nearly 30 years the UN has brought together countries for global climate summits, or COPs (Conference of the Parties) Th is November it is the turn of the UK, in partnership with Italy, to host COP26 in Glasgow.

COP21 took place in Paris in 2015. Th ere, countries agreed to work together to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and aim for 1.5 degrees to adapt to the eff ects of the changing climate.

Four goals (see box, p5) have been outlined that need to be achieved at COP26, which was delayed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Th e Planner spoke to Isabella Krabbe (IK), research offi cer at the RTPI, to establish COP26’s relevance to planners.

Q: Why does COP26 matter to planners? What should planners get from the conference?

IK: COP26 is a key opportunity not just to raise global ambition, but also for the UK to galvanise eff orts to reach our legally binding target of net-zero emissions by 2050 and improve biodiversity. COP26 presents a chance to deepen the shift towards more sustainable urban planning practices with fairness and justice at their heart.

While COP26 recognises that we need to work nationally and internationally to secure progress on addressing climate change, we must also raise ambition for local action. Planners are at the cutting edge of the climate emergency because they have responsibility for decisions that are vital to our collective future. Eff ective local and strategic plans can help to deliver a range of key solutions to climate change issues, and can also help local communities to reap the economic, environmental and social benefi ts of such action over the long term.

Q: Which of the four goals is the most important to planners – and why?

IK: I would argue that all four goals are equally relevant to planners as all four global goals which COP26 will grapple with translate into important challenges for planners.

1Secure global net-zero by midcentury and keep 1.5 degrees within reach

Th is goal requires urgent action across the built environment including reducing emissions from buildings, transport, energy and waste. Th e planning system can help to plan for this future and it is also a vital gateway to gaining consent for new technologies. Planners can help keep a 1.5-degree future within reach by integrating measures to enable walking and cycling into wider strategies for place and locking in long-term shifts in travel behaviour; designing and locating aff ordable new development in sustainable locations and minimising energy and transport demand in local plans; supporting the roll-out of smart energy infrastructure through local and strategic planning; providing certainty to renewable energy through ambitious and consistent local planning policy; setting energyeffi ciency standards that go beyond national minimum; and supporting a national retrofi t strategy. It is also important to support a reuse fi rst principle – whereby previously used land, buildings, places, materials and infrastructure are given preference to new.

2Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats

Adaptation to the risks presented by climate change is key to futureproofi ng our existing communities and making sure that new developments maintain and enhance natural habitats and the health and wellbeing of local “EFFECTIVE LOCAL communities, as well as AND STRATEGIC their competitiveness. PLANS CAN HELP TO Planners can support DELIVER A RANGE this through improving OF KEY SOLUTIONS the quality and resilience TO CLIMATE CHANGE of existing homes and ISSUES” neighbourhoods, improving

access to green spaces, embedding ‘climate justice’ and nature based approaches in plan-making and prioritising green and blue infrastructure and sustainable urban drainage (SuDs).

3Mobilise fi nance

Despite clear links between the planning system and the UK’s sustainable development ambitions, planning services are under increasing pressure and scrutiny. Overcoming these challenges and prioritising the planning system can support planners to deliver on more ambitious development and recovery targets. Continual investment, resourcing and training is needed to ensure that the planning system can deliver on the goals of COP26. Planning must be invested in as an essential public service through investment to support capacity building and the right skills for local authority planners to ensure that policy is compliant with net-zero and providing new models of funding for plan-making to ensure that local plans are in line with locally set carbon budgets.

4Work together to deliver

Th e ambition to collaborate and respond to climate change is very much alive across the built environment sector and the level of climate action needed cannot be achieved in isolation. Reaching local targets on climate and ecological action will require a holistic understanding of the challenges and a joint approach to policy areas which have previously been managed separately. Th is will require a ‘whole systems’ approach, where there is collaboration with neighbouring and cross-tier local authorities and other key delivery bodies on strategies and plans, cross departmental working and engagement with local communities.

In advance of COP26, we are presenting these core messages to the UK governments and Irish Government to inform their engagement in the negotiations that will take place before and during the summit discussions.

Q: What is the role of local authority planners in delivering these goals and delivering change in their area?

What needs to be achieved at COP26?

1. Secure global net-zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach

Countries are being asked to come forward with ambitious 2030 emissions reductions targets that align with reaching net-zero by the middle of the century.

2. Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats

Work together to enable and encourage countries aff ected by climate change to protect and restore ecosystems and build defences, warning systems and resilient infrastructure and agriculture to avoid loss of homes, livelihoods and lives.

3. Mobilise fi nance

To deliver on the fi rst two goals, developed countries must make good on their promise to mobilise at least $100 billion in climate fi nance a year by 2020.

4. Work together to deliver

COP26 must see the Paris Rulebook (the detailed rules that make the Paris agreement operational) fi nalised. Action must be accelerated to tackle the climate crisis through collaboration between governments, businesses and civil society.

More detail about the goals can be found here: bit.ly/ planner0921-COP26goals

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IK: Th e Climate Change Committee (CCC) recognises spatial planning as one of the biggest opportunities local authorities have to deliver net-zero. Local authority planners are increasingly ambitious in their decisions, plans and policies to tackle the climate emergency and have a range of statutory duties and powers to shape their local area.

Th ese include allocating sites in the local plan, making decisions on development through development management, planning powers over buildings and transport, requiring sustainable urban drainage or lowcarbon heating in developments, enforcement of building regulations, setting energy-effi ciency standards which go above the national minimum, responsibility for managing climate risks such as fl ooding and increasingly overheating, duties and powers to protect the environment, wildlife and heritage and responsibility for waste collection and disposal.

Q: To what extent are planners being supported by the relevant governments and policies? What needs to change to help planners to deliver the goals?

IK: Local planning authorities in England are bound by a legal duty to ensure that, taken as whole, planning policy contributes to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change and the revised National Planning Policy Framework also sets a requirement for planning to deliver sustainable development with a key objective being to protect and enhance the natural environment and move towards a low-carbon economy through adaptation and mitigation.

However, delivery of climate adaptation and mitigation ‘on the ground’ is generally poor. Th e Climate Change Committee 2021 Progress Report to Parliament advises that climate change must “be integrated throughout policy and planning decisions, and must be a key consideration in the government’s proposed planning reforms” with

[Pictured, right] Isabella Krabbe [below] a ‘whole systems’ approach to development will be critical to success

key requirements embedded into core policies. It should not just be guidance, it should be law.

Although stronger climate change law and policy would help, practical and political issues such as uncertainty produced by government policy subject to reversals; an overwhelming focus on housebuilding; and severe underresourcing in planning departments are the key barriers to delivering these goals.

Planners need longer-term policy and funding certainty to underpin investment decisions. Local authorities need to be supported by coordination from the government to prevent the fragmented delivery of net-zero and communities being left behind. We hope to see a comprehensive net-zero strategy in advance of COP26 that sets out a clear pathway for coordinated delivery, resourcing and upskilling. All local areas are diff erent and there is no ‘one-sizefi ts-all’ so it is important that local authorities retain the fl exibility to take account of diff ering local conditions and priorities and are able to deliver a place-based approach.

Q: What is the

RTPI doing for its members to help them deliver the

Paris agreement goals and the SDGs?

IK: Th rough our work on climate change we are pushing for UK planning systems that deliver both climate action and nature restoration and support the UN’s campaign for the Sustainable Development Goals. Th e RTPI’s work on this subject is guided by the idea of ‘climate justice’; communities will be impacted diff erently by climate change, and to be successful, our responses must carefully consider their diff erent needs.

In advance of COP26, we are updating our joint publication with the TCPA Rising to the Climate Crisis: A Guide for Local Authorities on Planning for Climate Change. We are also updating our Plan Th e World We Need campaign to make it global in reach and publishing research on how National Model Design Codes can deliver mitigation and adaptation and improve biodiversity.

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A303 Stonehenge bypass DCO quashed

Th e High Court has quashed the development consent order (DCO) for the A303 between Amesbury and Berwick Down in Wiltshire past the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps granted the DCO for the Highways England project, which sought to address congestion on the route between the south-east and south-west, in November 2020 – against the recommendation of the Planning Inspectorate.

It advised withholding consent, warning that it would cause “permanent irreversible harm” and the benefi ts to the “outstanding universal value” (OUV) “would not be capable of off setting this harm”. Th e inspectorate suggested a number of modifi cations if the secretary of state chose to grant the DCO.

Shapps, however, decided that “any harm to heritage assets, including the OUV, is less than substantial and this harm (while carrying great weight), along with the other harms identifi ed, are outweighed by the benefi ts of the development”.

Shortly after the decision was issued, campaign group Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) asked Leigh Day solicitors to investigate the lawfulness of the decision, having crowdfunded £50,000 to bring a judicial review at the High Court.

Mr Justice Holgate noted that the judgment could only consider the lawfulness of the transport secretary’s decision, therefore the judgment should not be treated as either approving or disapproving of the project..

Th e campaigners raised a number of grounds that the court rejected, but two separate grounds succeeded.

Holgate found there to be a “material error of law” in considering the impact on Stonehenge as a whole rather than assessing the impact on individual assets. Th e judgment states that the court was not shown anything in the

Stonehenge was ascribed World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 1986

decision letter that “could be said to summarise such matters”.

“In these circumstances, the [secretary of state] was not given legally suffi cient material to be able lawfully to carry out the ‘heritage’ balancing exercise required by paragraph 5.134 of the [National Policy Statement for National Networks] and the overall balancing exercise required by s.104 of the Planning Act 2008. In those balancing exercises the [secretary of state] was obliged to take into account the impacts on the signifi cance of all designated heritage assets aff ected so that they were weighed, without, of course, having to give reasons which went through all of them one by one.”

Holgate upheld this challenge.

Another challenge submitted by SSWHS was that the secretary of state had failed to consider mandatory considerations, including the existence of at least one alternative.

Holgate concluded that the secretary of state was legally obliged to consider the merits of the alternatives to the

“CAMPAIGNERS RAISED A NUMBER OF GROUNDS THAT THE COURT REJECTED, BUT TWO SEPARATE GROUNDS SUCCEEDED” proposed western cutting, such as the provision of a cut-and-cover section to the west of the proposed bored tunnel or an extension of that bored tunnel to the west so that its portals would be located outside the World Heritage Site. Both of these options were estimated to increase project costs. Th ese two decisions mean that the DCO has been quashed. Redetermination of the application is a matter for the secretary of state. John Adams, OBE, SSWHS director and acting chairman of the Stonehenge Alliance, said that “now that we are facing a climate emergency, it is all the more important that this ruling should be a wake-up call for the government”. “It should look again at its roads programme and take action to reduce road traffi c and eliminate any need to build new and wider roads that threaten the environment as well as our cultural heritage.” nTh e court documents can be found here: bit.ly/planner0921-Stonehenge