Last Friday (22 November), Dorset Council took the decision to amend its Climate Emergency, so it is now a ‘Climate and Ecological Emergency’ declaration.
The newly-titled ‘Climate Change and Ecological Emergency Executive Advisory Panel’ met on Friday afternoon to agree the change to their terms of reference, as well as discuss the work that has taken place so far and sit down with local students to discuss their thoughts on climate change.
Earlier this year members of the panel met with local activists to discuss the change to the wording of the emergency declaration so that the protection and enhancement of Dorset’s natural environment and wildlife biodiversity is also considered in the Council’s climate emergency mitigation work. While agreed in principle at the time, the panel needed to establish the formal process for making this change, which has now been applied.
The panel were then given feedback on Low Carbon Dorset’s recent Town & Parish Climate Emergency Advice Seminar (pictured), which took place on Tuesday 19 November.
The Low Carbon Dorset programme has received an influx of applications from town and parish councils who have declared a climate emergency and need help to develop a plan and deliver against their climate emergency declaration. This event was an opportunity to get them all under one roof to provide guidance on creating a plan and give pointers on what they need to consider when responding to the emergency.
With over 100 attendees, the event was a great success. Presentations were warmly received, providing information on the climate emergency and what needs to be considered when creating a climate emergency plan. Soapbox sessions took place to provide ideas on what town and parishes could be doing through their services and/or influence over the community, and everyone had the opportunity to talk to the speakers to find out more about their topic area.
All attendees were sent a post-event feedback survey and a carbon foot-printing toolkit, the latter to help estimate the carbon footprint of their operations, assets and whole area. Officers will review the survey responses before planning their next actions.
The panel were also updated on the Council’s Task & Finish groups’ progress, covering four key areas of work (with a Leadership & Influence workshop to follow). Notable points and ideas included: –
- Buildings – Accounts for over half of Dorset Council’s carbon footprint, so big opportunity for significant savings. Potential commissioning of energy surveys as part of office reviews. Investigation of policy changes, enforcing minimum standards for new projects, using Dorset Council Local Plan
- Natural Environment – Establish an information hub with guidance on best practice. Maximise use of existing Biodiversity protocol and Pollinator action plan. Investigate how we can make better use of our county farms
- Waste and Energy – Introduction of Single Use Plastic policy and better waste segregation across all Dorset Council sites. Commission study to look at how Dorset energy system could work. Investigate building our own renewable energy facilities
- Transport – Lobby for a national plan on transport. Planning must reduce need to travel and encourage uptake of sustainable travel. Greener travel policies should be embedded in current key strands of work, including our Assets review, Local Transport Plan and Local Plan.
Officers also presented their timeline for a wide-reaching ‘Call for ideas’ engagement exercise, which will launch and be publicised as soon as the current purdah period is lifted. The aim is to allow the public to submit their ideas for tackling climate change, with a few selected to present directly to the panel early next year. Further details will follow in the coming weeks.
Finally, the panel sat with students from local schools to hear their views on climate impact and what could be done to tackle it. In an emotive session, councillors heard how young people felt that climate change is the most urgent problem humanity has ever faced and how they were fearful for the future, already changing their lifetime plans and ambitions considering a deteriorating climate.
There were concerns that the urgency of action needed to tackle climate change was not being emphasised in the current curriculum and that general awareness amongst the public needed to be improved. The children also spoke of how they wanted to see sustainable transport, tree planting, litter-picking and subsidisation of waste reduction and recycling schemes improved by the Council.
Panel members thanked the students for their time, reassured them that young people will continue to be listened to and that decisive action will be taken by Dorset Council to tackle climate change.
Antony Littlechild, Sustainability Team Manager at Dorset Council, said:
“The protection and enhancement of our natural environment has always been vitally important to Dorset Council and its predecessor organisations, so adding Ecology to our Climate Emergency declaration is a logical progression of our work. We cannot hope to improve our natural environment through carbon reduction alone, so we need to consider other management options also.
I’m really pleased with the continued progress of the panel and our Task and Finish groups. We’re developing some ambitious ideas that we’re looking forward to sharing with the public and the wider Council. It’s highly important that we take the time to ensure that our action plan is achievable, but please rest assured that we are working at pace and with real urgency.
I also think I speak for all councillors and officers who were there on Friday when I say that we were incredibly moved by what the students had to say about their fears regarding how climate change will affect their future. We will reflect on their remarks as we continue our work, making sure we set realistic but ambitious goals for reducing carbon emissions and preserving our natural environment.”
I believe it’s a very good idea to engage with the public and young people and to harness their current concerns about climate change. allied to this, we need expert, scientific and (as far as possible) irrefutable evidence of the various elements of climate change and how we, in Dorset, can begin to combat this.
This will require, for some DC departments and the Council itself, a paradigmatic shift on such things as transport subsidies, and such practices as not allowing solar panels in conservation areas; as well as allowing wind farms into areas of great beauty or out to sea and such schemes as subsidised ‘wilding’ of areas to move away from unsustainable farming practices, to increase the number of trees and bio and species diversity.
Government planning policy is clear on meeting the challenge of climate change, flooding and coastal change.
For example, paragraph 148 of the National Planning Policy Framework: “The planning system should support the transition to a low carbon future in a changing climate, taking full account of flood risk and coastal change. It should help to: shape places in ways that contribute to radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, minimise vulnerability and improve resilience; encourage the reuse of existing resources, including the conversion of existing buildings; and support renewable and low carbon energy and associated infrastructure.”
How can Dorset Council support developers and housebuilders to meet these targets? The Local Plan already actively provides for climate change. But this is a guard dog with no teeth.
Furthermore, as a public authority, Dorset Council already has a duty to have regard to conserving biodiversity as part of your policy or decision making. Including, for example, “through managing the planning system”.
As local planning authority, Dorset Council has responsibilities. But not the resource to match. All this can only be done in partnership with communities, businesses and, ultimately, central government. Or Dorset remains a guard dog with no teeth.
Transport Policy: does this mean that DCC will be investing more money in extending bus services in rural areas?
It’s one of many ideas that the Transport Task and Finish group is investigating.
Our bus service is currently inadequate and there is no alternative but to drive
One car for one person should be a last resort for journeys under 5miles (over half of UK journeys) which can be cycled in 20mins and takes less time than driving when allowing for parking /de-icing etc. Integrated transport means linking alternative transport modes eg folding bike with bus and/or train for longer journeys. You dont have to be super-fit or young – I do this regularly aged 67.
Planning decisions – in particular flood risk.
Sustainable Urban Drainage solutions are currently designed on the basis of a 1 in 100 year probability, but it appears this probability is based upon history not ‘climate change adjusted’ probability.
If accepting the principal of Climate Emergency should we not be aligning flood design solutions to the same data so that we do not continue adding to the cost of flood damage?
On 25.11.19 the BBC 1o’clock news I stood in my kitchen and listened to the fact that Greenhouse gas concentrations again break records – the report stated that “We need to translate the commitments into action and increase the level of ambition for the sake of the future welfare of mankind,”
“It is worth recalling that the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago. Back then, the temperature was 2-3C warmer, sea level was 10-20m higher than now,”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50504131 the items referred to London flooded and uninhabitable.
I went cold and thought this is so significant how come we are not all rushing into the streets and panicking. It is worse than being told there is WWIII. How come so many people do not understand what we are facing? After panic subsides I refocus on what I personally can do – talk and tell and change my carbon foot print and ask others to do the same. We must tell everyone to support wind farms, solar farms, tree planting. Stop being profligate with our home – the world. This is not some movie it is for real.
There are 350,000 carbon busting trees to give away to community groups and volunteers for FREE! The sooner we plant them all, the sooner we will reach 1 million trees. https://www.tcv.org.uk/communities/i-dig-trees
The Council should complete their audit of Council controlled land and decide the best use for trees, onshore wind farms etc etc – we need joined up thinking and guidance for everyone to see what they can do to stop fossil fuel dependency.
How about school playing fields becoming woodland? Private land owners should think very carefully about what they can do.
So when will you start keeping green spaces and stop building houses, that have no infrastructure to support them. Hillbourne school would be an ideal project to re green and provide a park for the people that already live on the estate. We have lost our church and the doctors building. The old school could be turned into a doctors surgery and a community hall. Developers will rip out the surrounding bushes that the birds love. Traffic will at least double if this housing development goes ahead. About time the council stopped talking and did what it says it will.
Hopefully we can see an end to some households / businesses having bonfires, these really need to be banned now along with wood burning stoves put in for “ effect because it looks nice at Xmas and they like to look at a flame not because they need it for heat in their gas boiler heated homes” nothing worse than the smell of smoke from the above how bonfires aren’t banned with hefty fines is beyond my comprehension.
Green energy
We are going to put solar panels on our south facing roof.
Please would your experts advise me on which are the greenest, most reliable and efficient. We need panels that will provide us with electricity for the home and maybe car for the next 20 years.
I would also be interested to hear about the incentives that there are for people to become greener and stop using gas
Many thanks
For three years I have been trying to get some action regarding traffic congestion and car engine idling in the vicinity of our local primary school. In spite of representations to DCC, WDDC and now Dorset Council and in spite of representative site visits I haven’t achieved anything. Traffic pollution causes lung disease, asthma, dementia and development issues in young people. I have written to the responsible Councillor who has taken months to respond to my emails. Dorset Council will not pay for “No Idling” signs in our grass verge and insists that an holistic approach is necessary. I believe that every case should be treated separately. Dorset Council believes that the answer is to write to schools and parent groups, an approach that was tried years ago and does not work. It is against the law to idle a car engine so “No Idling” signs are required with police or local authority enforcement. Meanwhile parents are happy to turn up three quarters of an hour early to collect their children and leave their car engines running. My view is that this Dorset Council Climate Emergency is nothing more than a few fine words to appease the climate protesters. What is needed is positive action and renewed monitoring of pollution levels.
How about switching off unnecessary street lights? They burn all night to no purpose.
How about all social housing and council properties to be fitted with solar panels?
How about lobbying the government for a change in the planning laws and oblige all new building to have solar panels and where feasible ground heat pumps?
How about obliging all car parks to be fitted with electric vehicle charging points?
We have known about climate change for some thirty years. Let’s stop talking about changes in wording on committees. We actually know what many of the problems are and we need to make unpleasant decisions and some of these decisions are at a personal level.
Congestion on the roads: I ask around for people’s plans to buy an electric car and affluent people replace their diesels with SUVs. Roads are congested at the same time because schools and commuters start and finish work at the same time. Too many households have too many vehicles. We need to take vehicles off the road by some sort of control of registrations both daily and long term. I know political parties have plans for 2030 to 2050 but that is beyond the time of todays politicians and so they can shrug things off. For them there is no emergency.
I ask people what are their plans to change from gas fired central heating: The reply is a look of surprise that they should even consider the issue. I get a torrent of resistance to such debate. Sadly, the emergency is somewhere else. It is not at government level because the time spent on “more important problems”. It is not a personal problem but it is for someone else to consider; “not me, I have a busy life”.
So, Dorset Council please show leadership and start acting and stop talking.
I trust that “minimum standards for new projects” includes the new buildings / housing proposed for Dorset , not just council buildings/ projects .
The article mentions Dorset Council’s carbon footprint. Where can I find the details of this please?
This is still being calculated as part of the Council’s work.