5.10pm to 5:40pm
Minutes:
The Climate Change Officer and the Policy and Partnerships Manager attended the meeting to provide members with an update on actions 44 and 45 on the climate change action plan. The two actions related to the commission of reports on carbon accounting and de-carbonisation pathways which would provide an evidence base to support the development of a new climate change strategy.
To inform the strategy, consultations had taken place with all the council’s service leads to understand their concerns regarding climate change. The carbon accounting report provided a detailed look at the council’s finances and the costs of climate change on the budget which provided a hotspot analysis on where the most significant emissions were within the council’s supply chain. The de-carbonisation pathway report assessed the climate risk and produced a series of recommendations of steps that the council could take to achieve de-carbonisation.
This evidence base had produced a set of key areas to focus on for the strategy which were: the council’s electricity and gas usage, developing the vehicle fleet and offsetting emissions that could not be reduced within the timeframe.
The strategy was likely to be significantly larger than the climate change action plan and discussions were also taking place with tier 4 managers to ensure the actions would be embedded across the authority. A public consultation on the draft strategy was expected to start in November however there were a number of announcements expected from the new Prime Minister, particularly on the goal for net zero emissions, which may impact on the strategy development.
In response to a question about why a written report had not been provided ahead of the meeting, the Chair advised that, as this was an interim update in response to a specific question at the last Forum meeting, the Chairs felt it was appropriate for a verbal update. A full written update will be brought to the Forum in November to allow members to review and comment on the draft strategy.
Members commented that the Standards and Audit Committee had raised a question about why Cabinet reports only contained a brief statement on climate change implications and advised that the Committee would be asking the Climate Change Officer to attend a future meeting.
Members asked whether external consultants were being used to prepare the new strategy and the Climate Change Officer explained that an external company had carried out the research for the de-carbonisation pathways report however CBC officers were using that evidence to write the strategy. Members also enquired about which elements of financial spend were looked at when assessing the carbon footprint. The Climate Change Officer advised that a machine was used to sort through a substantial number of records and categorise those by type, a carbon model was then used to identify a generic carbon emission for that category of work.
Members asked whether there was a Climate Change Officers network and were informed that there was a group called the Collective for Climate Action which was made up of concerned individuals who work in the public sector. Within this group was a sub-group of Climate Change Officers who met to share best practice. In addition, there was a database of all the climate change action plans in the country which was published online (https://data.climateemergency.uk/).
In response to Members questions about the categories used for assessing where the council’s emissions came from and proportion of emissions arising from the categories, the Climate Change Officer explained that scope 1 emissions were from fuel that was burnt by the council, scope 2 emissions were from electricity and scope 3 emissions were from third parties and other supply chains. Although scope 3 contained the highest proportion of emissions, this scope relied on activities by other companies, therefore the emissions in scopes 1 and 2 were much more certain.
Members asked about whether the 2030 net zero target was achievable and what “offset” meant. The Climate Change Officer explained that offsetting is doing something that results in a negative emission: absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Examples of this are planting trees and restoring peatland. In response to a discussion on tree planting, the Climate Change Officer explained that the best way to plant trees that stored carbon was by planting woodlands rather than orchards.
Members enquired whether the council’s employees were on board with the council’s climate change priorities and heard that the staff had reacted positively about the development of the new strategy.
Following the recent high temperatures, Members asked how the temperatures were affecting people and what could be done to address this. The Climate Change Officer advised that elderly and small children struggle more with regulating their temperature and often live in well insulated homes. Introducing passive cooling, such as shade sails and trees, would help to reduce temperatures.
The Chair thanked the Climate Change Officer and the Policy and Partnerships Manager for attending and answering Members’ questions.
RESOLVED –
1. That the update be noted.
2. That a report be received on the development of the new Climate Change Strategy at the November meeting.