Agenda item

The following Motion was proposed by Councillor England and seconded by Councillor Barrett:

Climate Emergency and COP26

1.  Dacorum Borough Council notes that the important Climate Summit COP26 is being held in Glasgow this November, with only eight years remaining of the ten that were available when the Climate Emergency was recognised and declared by this council.

2.  Council also notes that the local response to the Climate Emergency, while capable of undertaking many urgent and useful actions within its powers and capacity and able to energise local people and businesses, faces critical limitations in key areas for scaling-up change, such as:

• Sufficient and adequate workforce, trained and scaled for deployment to install Ground-Source and Air Source Heat Pumps and other innovative renewables and insulating technologies to reduce CO2 production in housing and other buildings
• Funding for the front-loaded costs of insulation schemes and conversion to renewables of present carbon-intensive systems used in Dacorum, both by the Council and by residents and businesses.

3.  These work-streams and others require urgent action by Government, to improve capacity for local authorities to draw on, particularly those authorities like Dacorum with large housing stock, who are required to insulate buildings, adopt non-fossil-fuel sources of heat and power, and to reduce or recycle waste products safely and efficiently.

4.  To ensure this council and others can undertake this critical work, local authorities need reassurance from Government that they can confidently prepare budgets knowing that that capacity will be available.

5.  Council agrees to ask the Portfolio-holder for Environment to write to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and Alok Sharma, President of COP26 to urge a commitment on spending and timing for an urgent and effective scheme of investment in workforce training, technological innovation and industry standards to allow local government to make urgent progress in meeting its challenges meaningfully in the financial year 22/23.       

A vote was held:

It was unanimously agreed,

and therefore the Motion was carried.

Proposed by Councillor Adrian England

Climate Emergency and COP26

1.  Dacorum Borough Council notes that the important Climate Summit COP26 is being held in Glasgow this November, with only eight years remaining of the ten that were available when the Climate Emergency was recognised and declared by this council.

2.  Council also notes that the local response to the Climate Emergency, while capable of undertaking many urgent and useful actions within its powers and capacity and able to energise local people and businesses, faces critical limitations in key areas for scaling-up change, such as:

• Sufficient and adequate workforce, trained and scaled for deployment to install Ground-Source and Air Source Heat Pumps and other innovative renewables and insulating technologies to reduce CO2 production in housing and other buildings
• Funding for the front-loaded costs of insulation schemes and conversion to renewables of present carbon-intensive systems used in Dacorum, both by the Council and by residents and businesses.

3.  These work-streams and others require urgent action by Government, to improve capacity for local authorities to draw on, particularly those authorities like Dacorum with large housing stock, who are required to insulate buildings, adopt non-fossil-fuel sources of heat and power, and to reduce or recycle waste products safely and efficiently.

4.  To ensure this council and others can undertake this critical work, local authorities need reassurance from Government that they can confidently prepare budgets knowing that that capacity will be available.

5.  Council agrees to ask the Portfolio-holder for Environment to write to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and Alok Sharma, President of COP26 to urge a commitment on spending and timing for an urgent and effective scheme of investment in workforce training, technological innovation and industry standards to allow local government to make urgent progress in meeting its challenges meaningfully in the financial year 22/23.       

Councillor Barrett seconded the Motion and thanked Councillor England for bringing the Motion to Council. He confirmed he was fully supportive of the content and was happy to write a letter as proposed. Further as a measure of the importance of the subject he would be asking the Leader of the Council to join him in signing the letter.

The Mayor invited the proposer, Councillor England, to speak on the Motion.

Councillor England: “The August 2021 report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) makes clear that we already face global temperatures in excess of anything our species has experienced.

“Since 1995, government representatives from around the world have gathered annually for the UN Climate Change Conference (often referred to as the Conference of the Parties, “the COP”)

At COP21, hosted in Paris, world leaders committed to a historic agreement to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 ? above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5 ?. They also agreed to step up efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change and to make finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

The world has woken up to the need to curb emissions and invest in climate resilience. But we all need to move faster down this path, with the UK continuing to lead by example with its net zero targets written into law.

At COP26, we need governments, businesses, cities, the scientific community and civil society to work together to accelerate the transformation of our economies, deal with the inevitable impacts of climate change, and bend the curve on global emissions.”

I proposed this Motion because we have urgent work to accomplish and my group aims to assist the Council in making essential progress in tackling the Climate Emergency,

…and next year is a vital year.

We welcome the seconding of this Motion by the Cabinet Portfolio holder for Environment.

I am hoping this Council will be able to come to unanimous agreement, just as with the declaring of the Climate Emergency, which we did in summer 2019.

I want to take this – for me rare - opportunity to do “non-political” because this issue is too important to miss the opportunity that COP26 – from 1^st to 12^th November in Glasgow presents.

This Motion recognises that the 10 years we had in 2019 is now eight.

I looked up the physics of avoiding a crash and can tell you that, in dry “perfect” conditions a car at 60mph can stop in 6.87 sec. The first second of that is “thinking time”. That is enough maths to tell us that OUR thinking time is used-up.

So we need to be able to act at scale, and as a Council in the coming Budget for 2022/23.

To do so we need to see how, via Central Government, the necessary action can be funded and a suitable workforce applied to the transition in levels of insulation across our large stock-holding and to renewable fuels and methods for heating.

The reason for using the examples of heat pumps and insulation is that these are mentioned by DBC officers in the report to Strategic Planning and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee (SPAE OSC) from 21^st March 2021:

(Page 54) Section 3 – points out that DBC has heavy reliance on Govt plans and progress, including:

• Offshore wind and solar
• Hydrogen
• Nuclear
• 600,000 heat pumps by 2028

(Page 58) 4.1.2h states that:

“…The first phase being considered is a 5 year programme to tackle low performing dwellings within the HRA portfolio with a fabric first approach, this would concentrate on roofs, insulation, windows and ventilation (with the potential of some type of solar intervention)…”

…“The phased approach to tackle climate emergency would commence financial year 2022/23”.

COP26 organisers urge us to:

“Make your action count and inspire others to do their bit by sharing what you are doing using #TogetherForOurPlanet and #OneStepGreener on social media and joining others through the Count Us In campaign.”

The “Count us in” campaign picks out 16 things we can all do:

o   Fly less           

o   Drive electric              

o   Insulate your home    

o   Wear clothes to last

o   Tell your politicians                

o   Walk and cycle more 

o   Cut food waste           

o   Green your money

o   Repair& re-use                       

o   Dial it down                

o   Speak up at work       

o   Talk to friends

o   Eat more plants                      

o   Eat seasonal              

o   Switch your energy    

o   Get some solar

I want to mention the encouragement I had from the Chair of SPAE OSC:

Although I didn’t quite have confidence in his concept of being able to solve the energy problem with a “combination” of Hydrogen and Nuclear, I hope I have understood the Chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee for Strategic Planning and Environment, Cllr Birnie’s email comment to me on 13^th August, when he wrote back to me:

“Anxiety about climate change is pretty universally shared and I hope we can approach DBC policy on this matter in a constructive cross-party manner going forward.”

(Obviously there are safe limitations to constructive cross-party working as long as the Conservatives retain all the Chairs of Scrutiny Committees, but now that the Education Secretary has gone perhaps we can relax just a tad about people marking their own homework?) Just kidding folks.

The August 2021 report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) makes clear that we already face global temperatures in excess of anything human beings have experienced.

So I hope that COP26 WILL bring the enabling of local government action which will tackle the Climate Emergency AND save residents from the cost of heating leaky homes, with fossil fuels.

As a Council we cannot make Govt policy, but when our officers report that Govt action is necessary for our plans to be credible, it is right that in the lead-up to such an important summit, Dacorum speaks to power, to say what it needs.

One more time:

The August 2021 report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) makes clear that we already face global temperatures in excess of anything our species has experienced.

What a statement.”

Councillors Banks, Griffiths, Pringle, Stevens and Birnie spoke in support of the Motion.

A vote was held:

It was unanimously agreed,

Therefore the Motion was carried.