Speech by Joan Ruddock MP to the 'Delivering Low Carbon Cities' at the Birmingham NEC – 23 November 2007 “Tackling climate change: how local and national government, communities, and businesses can work together"
I am really pleased to be in Birmingham. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.
It would be difficult to improve on the timing of this conference. It has already been a hugely important week for the environment – sadly perhaps a little overshadowed by other event.
On Monday the Prime Minister pledged to put the UK at the forefront of the fight against climate change. He outlined how we would become a low carbon economy, and stated, for the first time, that the UK may need to cut its emissions by up to 80%, rather than the ‘at least 60%’ in the Climate Change Bill.
On the same day, Hilary Benn, launched our ‘Green Homes Service’ which will cut through confusion and red tape by bringing together the range of information, advice and grants available in a network of one stop shops.
On Tuesday, the latest statistics on carbon emissions for local authority areas were published. A detailed evidence base which helps local authorities to assess where and how they can best cut emissions.
And today Defra has published a package of new research on public attitudes to sustainable consumption.
Our research looks at what people think, what they know, and what their intentions are in the future. It covers the pivotal areas of energy, travel, holidays, food and finances.
Some of the results may surprise you. As an example, consumers are assuming that new products are more environmentally friendly than the older ones. This suggests that people believe that some ‘choice editing’ is already going on.
But disappointingly, for them making the more sustainable choice is too often associated with ‘sacrifice’, higher costs and reduced quality.
Overall it shows that though individuals recognise they have a personal responsibility to change their behaviour to protect the environment, most expect government to take the lead on these issues.
Clearly the headline message of the reports is that we all have a great deal more to do.
This includes continuing at every opportunity to drive home the 3 messages that climate change is happening; that we are tackling it together; and that we can succeed.
We know our climate is changing; we have seen it in rising sea levels, we have felt its impacts in our hotter summers.
Globally, eleven of the warmest years on record have occurred in the last 12 years. Last year the UK had one of its worst ever droughts, followed by severe flooding this year, primarily from torrential rain. And the recent North Sea tidal surges in Eastern England resulted in serious risk of coastal flooding with 1000s of residents having to leave their homes until the risk subsided.
These are the kind of events that we can expect to see happening with increasing frequency because of climate change.
Defra funds the UK Climate Impacts Programme to help organisations assess their vulnerability to present and future climate change, and also provides tools and advice on how to adapt.
Next year Defra, UKCIP and the Met Office Hadley Centre will publish new probabilistic climate change scenarios for the UK. Scenarios which are being designed with a great deal of input from stakeholders through a dedicated users’ panel
The Stern Report has decisively moved the debate on; investing to tackle climate change makes good economic sense. It is no longer just about protecting our environment and about social justice, it is simply sound financial management.
If we can achieve ambitious and purposeful actions on a global scale now, we can limit further changes to our climate, and much more easily manage the changes we can no longer avoid.
This means the UK moving to a low carbon economy, and our people choosing a low carbon lifestyle.
Globally, cities consume 75% of the world’s energy and produce 80% of its greenhouse gas emissions.
But the concentrated populations in cities and their localised economies makes them ideally placed to lead the way in measuring, targeting and systematically reducing their carbon footprint.
So our cities should not be seen as the greatest source of the problem, but – instead - as the greatest opportunity to solve it.
Here at home, the Government is determined to put the UK on course to becoming a low carbon economy.
The Climate Change Bill, published last week, is a hugely important. It will make us the first country in the world to legislate for a long-term legal framework for reducing carbon emissions.
And to meet the targets in the Bill, Government, local authorities, communities, businesses and individuals must work together as never before.
Central Government must provide the policy framework and freedom that allows Local Authorities to raise their game to the best.
Local authorities need to set themselves ambitious targets on climate change, and set about achieving these with gritty determination.
Businesses and investors need to lever all of their imagination and flair to develop the sustainable buildings, products and services at a quality and a price that people can afford.
And in return we, as consumers at home and at work, must reward these businesses by buying their greener goods, placing long-term contracts for their sustainable services, and choosing to live and work in a lower carbon environment.
Government is currently consulting on the technical definitions of indicators for the Local Government Performance Framework and we would welcome your input.
For the first time the indicators include action on climate change mitigation and adaptation. We hope this will help provide even greater impetus and encourage more authorities to reach the levels of the best. It will help to highlight the fact that climate change is an issue for all authorities, and recognise those that are already performing extremely well.
And, as a result of the Government’s Sub-National Review, local government has also been given a stronger role in working with their respective Regional Development Agencies to prepare the new single regional strategies. These strategies will provide an excellent opportunity to agree climate change as priority for the region, and to set the region on a course towards a low carbon future.
One example of what can be done is close at hand at the International Convention Centre (Birmingham ICC).
Here, Birmingham City Council has installed a combined heat and power generator (CHP), which uses the heat produced as a byproduct of electricity generation. This means it operates at almost twice the efficiency and creates significantly less CO2 than generating the heat and electricity separately.
And this is just one part of the Broad Street District Energy Scheme, which I’m sure you will hear more about in Sandy Taylor’s speech.
And I was really pleased to announce – just two weeks ago - that 3 cities are set to develop tailored action plans to slash their CO2 emissions under the new Low Carbon Cities Programme.
Under this scheme, the Carbon Trust and the Energy Saving Trust will work with Bristol, Leeds and Manchester to develop individual city-wide action plans to achieve low carbon economies which are both prosperous and sustainable.
The plan is to bring together public service bodies, businesses and community leaders in each of the cities to work together on the strategy and its implementation.
And each of these cities already has a track record of initiatives on reducing CO2.
In Bristol, they have 15 schools are helping children to walk to school. For Henleaze Infant School, the first walking bus took place two weeks ago, with the children all wearing high-visibility vests provided by a local estate agent.
In Manchester, the City Council, following a successful test-run on its own staff - over 700 joined - launched its ‘Green Champions’ scheme. This provides local organisations with a free, ready made and proven scheme to engage employees in reducing their energy use at home and at work.
And in Leeds, the City Council doubled the size of its ‘Fuelsavers’ team, which provides free and impartial advice to all Leeds residents on insulation and heating improvements.
So we intend to work with these cities to ensure that other cities can share their learning, including how to easily and effectively audit their own emissions and identify cost effective carbon saving opportunities.
I know many local authorities and regions are already driving forward exciting plans to increase the level of decentralised low carbon and renewable energy.
Sheffield, for example, is doing remarkable work to recover energy from waste. It currently supplies heat through its District energy network to over 140 buildings including leisure facilities and hotels, and – in the process - diverting over 200,000 tonnes of waste from local landfill.
And last July, in Dalston, London, the Bootstrap Company - a social enterprise - installed one of the largest solar installations in the UK – helped by Government and European Union funding. This company, as a consequence, expects to save 12 tonnes of carbon each year, and cut the building’s annual fuel bills by £15,000.
This is important, not only because of the carbon benefits, but a more community-based energy system could also lead to greater individual awareness of energy measures, driving a change in social attitudes and, in turn, more efficient use of energy resources.
And we in Government can do more to help. That is why the Government and Ofgem will shortly be publishing a consultation on removing the regulatory barriers to distributed electricity. This should make it easier for low carbon, distributed energy schemes to interact with the wider electricity system.
Meanwhile, the role for builders and investors is to seize the opportunities in our cities and towns.
Government has set out its requirements for all homes to be built to higher environmental standards from now on, and to zero carbon from 2016.
The Housing and Regeneration Bill will make it easier for councils and housing associations to build more homes. The Planning Bill aims to create a faster and fairer planning system, implementing the proposals of the Planning White Paper, particularly for nationally significant infrastructure projects – crucially in the field of renewable energy.
Business is also making its contribution with the ‘Sustainable UK cities: the energy challenge’. This is a UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy initiative, working with Shell and RWE npower. This project will focus on developing a network of good practice in the use of different technologies and help to identify emerging sustainable energy opportunities.
Finally, we all as consumers – at home and at work – have an additional role to play. Setting an example about what we do as well as what we say.
Climate change can help make local politics more relevant to people's lives, and encourage communities to unite behind a shared goal.
For example, Defra’s Climate Challenge Fund has granted £8.5m to support a range of projects across the country. These range from using community radio to get across key climate change messages in Bradford, to bringing together film-makers and young people in Bristol to develop short climate change films.
And, I am really pleased with the response to Defra’s trial version of our ‘Act on CO2’ calculator – if you haven’t already tried it, please do. We’ve had over half a million visitors so far. I am even more pleased that other organisations, including Hertfordshire County Council and Google, have taken advantage of the open source nature of the calculator which lets others use the core data and develop their own versions.
So in conclusion, there are already some great initiatives taking place.
But there is also room for many, many more and cities can lead the way – and I know you will debate more of how that action can take place later today.
We can all be part of tackling climate change – the greatest challenge we face – and will continue to face into the future. We have the ambition, the know how and the technology to deliver a low carbon future. I am sure that with the resourcefulness and endeavour that has characterised the leadership of our great cities over the decades, that we will be able to achieve it.
Further information
Page published: 23 November 2007