News & Events

Conference Report: promoting Climate Change initiatives in the South West

I attended ‘Communities & Energy – the Climate Change Challenge!’ conference on Thursday 23d October in Taunton. It was organised by SWRAF (South West Rural Affairs Forum) and SWAN (the South West ACRE Network). This report highlights some points of interest and useful  links to SMTF members (both Community Regeneration Partnerships with projects and Transition/Climate Action groups).

The week before this the Government announced that they are setting the target of 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, which, given the evidence of the IPCC is necessary, and will also be challenging to all of us.

Presentations;

Energy Savings  Trust – Ian Hutchcroft (Regional Manager) www.est.org.ukTheir new Advice Centre – tel 0800 512012 – gives impartial, quality advice on reducing energy use in the home, generating renewable energy, wise transport decisions, and reducing waste and water use.

Can also give 1-2-1 support to community groups (but limited capacity) and info for groups on their website.

Centre for Sustainable Energy – Simon Roberts
www. cse.org.uk
www.cse.org.uk/cgi-bin/page.cgi?3 – work with Community groups; good summary
www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/cafe - Community Action for Energy site

Simon gave an excellent, upbeat presentation (I’m trying to get a copy of his powerpoint) about all the things we can do now to reduce carbon emissions. Around 33% of emissions from the UK are from  housing, so better insulation & reducing energy use are key. This includes effective monitoring and managing energy use – he gave an example where the CSE had helped Bath Uni to reduce energy use in one laboratory by effective monitoring and save £25k on electricity a year.

Community Action for Energy – funded by EST. Support & advice for community groups.

Which led onto talking about motivations – those in the room were probably all ‘signed up’ to doing something about climate change but we shouldn’t be too surprised/disheartened when we meet those who ‘don’t believe in Climate Change’ (Jeremy Clarkson et al) or are not bothered to do anything about it. They may be motivated by saving money though, so Climate Action groups should think about the messages they are giving and adapt to the audience. Finding the audience - Simon gave an example about a group talking to people in the queue of a Fish & Chip shop, or outside a supermarket, as most people in society will not be desperate to attend a Climate Action meeting.

Opportunity for groups to access funding – there is a new Performance Indicator for Local Authorities on carbon emissions – NI 186. If groups can show they are contributing to meeting that indicator they potentially could apply for funding, however the detail of how this is works is to be confirmed.

He also gave notice again of the ‘Community Action for Energy’ Conference in Oxford on Nov 11th.

Regional Action Plan - Mark Robins (Regional Assembly and RSPB) www.southwest-ra.gov.uk/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=4221

The RAP contains ‘the easy stuff’ – the quick changes we can make that will help mitigate the worst effects of Climate Change. Mark said the new coal-fired power stations will be bad news as very heavy carbon-emitters. A crunch moment for Govt Climate Change & Energy policy.

Govt Office of the South West – John Bright
Gave an overview of Climate Change policy & developments, inc the new Department of Energy and Climate Change, PSA 27, energy security concerns (inc the term ‘energy nationalism’), European Directives in this area (with a commitment by the UK to 15% of electricity production from renewable sources by 2020). Recommends Regen SW’s ‘The Road to 2020’ document. Climate Change Bill (ground-breaking for developed countries) – 80% carbon emissions reduction by 2030.

Chew Magna ‘Go Zero’ - Ian Roderick
Ian, who also works for the Schumacher Institute and has developed ‘Converging World’ a charity working with communities in the third world on energy issues, explained briefly about what Go Zero has achieved – including a drop-in centre on the High St, domestic energy savings advice, campaigning on travel, better business facilities so less need for travel, lots of free lightbulbs given away! They’ve struggled with getting renewables projects going, and want to take the work onto another level. Some issues with accessing the national grid & tariffs & Planning!

Commonwheels – Philip Igoe
www.commonwheels.org.uk

My Points (my views not necessarily those of SMTF)

1. If we are to create truly environmentally sustainable communities, we need to rethink our policy regarding working closer to our homes, thereby reducing transport demand. The RSS needs ‘greening’ as it currently focuses most growth on larger towns and the cities in the SW. Yet our Market Towns support a sizeable % of the SW’s population (in towns and in their hinterland).

2. Regional Action Plan – agencies coming together and producing plans and strategies that should influence authorities, agencies, the private sector and individuals is a good thing, but Mark Robins spoke about using the RAP to ‘hold those bodies to account’. The Regional Assembly (who are unelected) does contain Councillors from each local Authority but have those authorities adopted the Action Plan? Will they? If they don’t the RA remains a talking shop and there will continue to be a ‘disconnect’ between what Government is saying about Climate Change and what Local Government is delivering.

3. Through the Conference one could see that there are a couple of levels of support that groups may need. Early information-sharing & networking between peers, which can be done by groups using the web, is one, but then when projects have been chosen, some support by an experienced person with the technical knowledge (especially for renewables) would be very helpful to groups to deliver these projects. CSE are looking at forming a consortium to put together a large funding bid for this kind of support but in the meantime we should look to use CafE and EST and others.

Matt Day

Created on October 24th 2008

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