Westminster Hall debate, UK priorities for COP29, 10 September 2024

Key Messages

• At COP26 in Glasgow, the LGA led the effort with international local government to help secure recognition of the role of local government in the final international agreement for the first time.  
• As COP29 begins, we would like to reflect again on the importance of local government in responding to climate change and improving the quality of life for our communities. We want to see further commitments from national governments in working with local governments.
• UK government should work with us to use COP29 to further understand how other countries work with local government. Last year, the LGA completed a project looking at how different countries around the world work with local government to deliver climate action, including the US, South Korea, Netherlands, and Norway.  The Netherlands Climate Agreement model was of particular interest.
• Climate change is an urgent and mounting threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Its impacts risk upending every ambition we hold for people, places and services. Its solutions demand action from everyone at every level and in every place. We understand the challenge, we have the solutions, and we know they achieve multiple co-benefits for health, jobs and inclusive growth; but delivering action is not straightforward.
• Local government’s offer is enormous. As community and place leaders, as housing, planning, transport, environment, and health authorities, and as procurers, asset holders, land managers, conveners, and enablers, we hold the key to adapting places to the climate risks identified by the Climate Change Committee - reducing their impact on people, growth and infrastructure, including as emergency and resilience planners.
• Only local government can lead, mobilise and connect action in places; councils demonstrate this every day. We hold influence to drive down a third of every place’s carbon emissions, and to do it most efficiently and effectively. 
• Local climate action can achieve net zero for half the cost of a national approach and deliver three times the growth, jobs, skills and health benefits.
• Climate change will cost at least 3.3 per cent of GDP up to 2050, and over 15 per cent of GDP in some council areas, under current mitigation policies. Public concern remains high, and demand for action will likely harden with every extreme weather event.

Background

Local authorities are responsible for two to five per cent of local emissions. We have direct influence over a third of an area's emissions through their roles in housing, transport and energy. Local authorities have the potential to influence 80 per cent of emissions through our place-shaping and leadership. 

Across the country, councils are working with communities to reduce emissions, boost energy efficiency, and protect against climate risks and extreme weather. 

 From:

• Retrofitting homes to enhancing energy efficiency and rolling out active travel programmes,  
• To delivering flood prevention, creating green jobs and working with communities to take sustainability into all walks of life.  

This is why the LGA continues to lead on this agenda, supporting and representing our councils.  

Climate action presents enormous opportunities for the long-term rewiring of public services in ways that best deliver the transition to a sustainable future. We have three core proposals to a new government:

First, work with local government on a renewed Local Climate Action Delivery Programme to provide the step change needed for moving forward local climate action. It must focus on building a single national framework for mitigation and adaptation that rapidly provides clarity on roles, responsibilities, and powers between local and national government. It should replace the Local Net Zero Forum which has not achieved its aims or potential.

Second, focus the Local Climate Action Delivery Programme on 10 local climate action missions to reduce emission and adapt to climate change up to 2050:

• Build public trust and inclusivity. Step up engagement with communities on climate action, national clarity reinforced locally by programmes building trust around changes in place, and street by street support on their own climate action journey.
• Rapidly retrofit social and fuel poor homes. Bring forward and devolve all funding for retrofitting social and fuel poor homes, to councils with flexibility to build local programmes that accelerate retrofit homes with energy efficiency measures, clean heat technologies and networks, and climate risk adaptations; and do so in ways that build supply chains, drive markets, and create scale to attract private finance.
• One public estate retrofit. Bring forward investments into whole-place retrofitting of local public buildings – councils, schools, hospitals – into single scaled programmes to cut carbon and adapt to risks, and in ways to drive change in commercial property.
• Local power plan. Create local energy strategies that build the pipeline of projects for local energy generation, and shape investment in local and regional grid infrastructure in ways that are supported by communities and where costs and benefits are fairly distributed.
• Electric, public and people powered transport. Devolve to councils the means to locally mix active travel, electric vehicles, and public transport; and provide a support framework for councils’ demand management schemes.
• Deliver zero waste through the polluter pays principle. Ensure schemes like the extension of the Emissions Trading Scheme to Energy from Waste pass costs onto producers with incentives to reduce waste and promote recycling, without loading costs onto councils.
• Protect and grow green and blue infrastructure. Give Local Nature Recovery Strategies the teeth to shape all public environment spending in places, and review powers they hold to lead nature-based adaptation action, from managing floods to droughts.
• Jobs, workforce, supply chains. Enable councils to help build local supply chains by establishing national policy certainty for green sectors, and link skills and employment services to develop the workforce needed to deliver local climate action across the economy.
• Public spending to attract private investment. Provide long-term core funding certainty to councils’ local climate action and wider place-based allocations to achieve outcomes with a focus on developing programmes that enable private and blended finance models.
• Local climate action test. Pass all government policy and funding decisions – for instance on planning, housing, waste, transport – through a test to provide a check that it does not undermine local climate action.

Third, translate missions to reality through Local Climate Action Plans covering all areas. Each would likely be unique, but in following a standard framework, should all:

• Accelerate local climate action agreed by central and local government in each area, incrementally building on existing experience and strengths in places.
• Provide multi-year place-based funding allocations underpinning action, with certainty for longer-term and exploration of fiscal freedoms.
• Agree ambitious but deliverable outcomes, with a focus on maximising impact and flexibility for councils in how they are met.
• Develop every council’s own capability and capability to lead action across all issues, while taking opportunities build economies of scale around some skills/technical assistance.
• Aggregate projects into programmes to pool resources, skills and technical assistance, and commit to build scale in seeking to attract private investment.
• Enter a process of regular review, refunding, and adaptation at every spending review up to 2050.

The choices made today will reverberate for hundreds of years. Councils are ready to play their full role in leading local climate action to hit net zero and adapt to change.

LGA sector support

The LGA delivers the Sustainability Improvement Programme, in partnership and funded by the Crown Commercial Service. It provides tools, networks, and training to build councils’ capability and capacity in sustainability and the environment. You can get involved by attending our masterclasses, roundtables, virtual events and more. You can find out more on our Sustainability Hub on the LGA Website

Contact

Elliot Gregory

Public Affairs and Campaigns Adviser

Phone: 020 7664 3059 

Mobile: 07766252833

Email: [email protected]