Cumbria County Council hasn’t yet declared a climate emergency, but it might as well have done. In September 2019 its councillors unanimously supported a motion “to become a ‘carbon neutral’ county and to mitigate the likely impact of existing climate change“. In the wake of that decision, leading members of the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Conservative parties on the council fell over themselves to confirm via a Council announcement that no meaningful democratic choice is to be allowed to the public with regard to this subject:
Commenting on today’s motion, Cllr Rebecca Hanson, Liberal Democrat member for Cockermouth North, who put forward the motion, said:
“Making the whole of Cumbria carbon neutral will be a vast challenge. Taking on the challenge of tackling climate change is only possible if everyone works together so it was a huge relief to see politicians of all persuasions coming together to support this motion today. As well as working together in Cumbria we are all now committed to challenging our parties to ensure they have the right national and international policies in place to tackle climate change.”
Cllr Stewart Young, Leader of the Council and the Labour Group of Cumbria County Council added:
“It was great to see cross-party consensus in Chamber today on an issue which is so significant. As a council it is important that we all work together to tackle Climate Change and collaborate with our six district authorities and our national park colleagues to become a carbon-neutral county.”
Cllr James Airey, Leader of the Conservative Group of Cumbria County Council, said:
“This is such an important issue and it was excellent to see Members of all political parties getting behind this essential motion. Climate change is the number one challenge facing the world and Cumbria County Council has to play its part in reducing carbon emissions and safeguarding our planet for future generations.”
Perhaps they are correct in their views, perhaps they are not, but the lack of choice offered to the public is depressing, especially when one considers the cost and futility of such policies. Cumbria has a population of just under 0.5 million, while the UK has a population of a little under 70 million, so Cumbria’s population is around 0.7% of the UK’s total. The UK’s contribution to man-made CO2 emissions on an ongoing basis is around 1%. Thus, Cumbria’s contribution to humankind’s ongoing CO2 emissions is around 0.007% of the total.
However, I digress. The purpose of this article is to consider how Cumbria County Council’s hype matches the reality. And there is plenty of hype. About a year after the “carbon neutral” motion was passed, the Council’s “Executive Director – Economy and Infrastructure” submitted a report to the “Scrutiny Advisory Board – Communities and Place” that:
…outlined the background to the development of the Carbon Management Strategy and the joint working that was taking place to ensure the aim of becoming a carbon neutral County and to mitigate the likely impact of existing climate change was reached. The Cumbria Climate Change Group, that had been established in June 2019, had six key aims and were now focussing work around mapping out specific programmes and action across transport, energy, business and industry, housing, waste and agriculture.
The officer gave a brief outline on the work the Council had commenced to support its response to the Climate Change agenda. This had included introducing a strengthening of the Senior Manager role to include a clear “Sustainability” element. Members noted other activities taking place within the Council and joint working with other organisation [sic] such as Cumbria LEP, within the Borderlands project and Cumbria Strategic Waste Partnership.
I will return to this report in a little while. Now, a little under two years later, the Council’s website is replete with its own climate change section. This has a major part dealing with “Our response to the climate emergency”, which in turn is subdivided into paragraphs about such things as “Cumbria Climate Change Working Group”, “Carbon Management Strategy” and“Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership”, (which links to yet another website, for Cumbria Action for Sustainability). This latter tells us:
The partnership brings together 80 organisations spanning the public, private and third sectors, with the aim of cutting greenhouse gas emissions – the root cause of the climate crisis. Members include community groups, local authorities (district and county councils), the NHS, police, national parks, businesses and the farming community, among others. The partnership is jointly chaired by CAfS and Angela Jones, executive director for economy and infrastructure at Cumbria County Council, with CAfS having put together the successful funding bid on its behalf.
A successful funding bid, eh? There’s a lot of money sloshing around in this stuff, and in this case all for a county with a population of less than half a million people. However, I digress again – it’s all too easily done. Back to the Council website. Some of it is difficult to object to, especially if you’re keen on looking after the environment – treescapes, roadside verges, planting for pollinators, etc. On the other hand, I’m less convinced that this will make much difference to anything:
The council has also invested in charging infrastructure, installing a total of 30 new electric vehicle charging points located at five Council-owned sites in the county. This is in addition to a number [number not specified] of charging points already provided by Cumbria County Council that are available for public use.
To encourage cycling and walking, the council has established a Cycling and Walking Programme to identify, develop and secure funding to deliver infrastructure improvements. The development of Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs) is a key part of this and these are currently being developed in Barrow-in-Furness, Carlisle, Kendal, Workington, Whitehaven and Penrith.
I don’t object to plans to encourage people to walk and cycle (I do a lot of walking and a bit of cycling myself), but they aren’t going to encourage people to do their shopping or travelling to work by bike. This is Cumbria. It’s cold and wet, not just in winter, but much of the time. Despite all the repeated fanfares in the mainstream media about an impending heatwave, I can count on one hand how many the times the temperature has (very briefly) touched 20C so far this year, and probably on two hands how many times it has exceeded 15C. The two weeks weather forecast for where I live on the BBC forecast has one day when temperatures briefly touch 19C and two when temperatures briefly touch 18C, and that’s it. Quite a few of them see temperatures no higher than 14C. In summer.
However, I digress yet again. Back to the meeting that discussed the report submitted to the relevant Council committee. I note these discussion points from the minutes:
A number of issues were raised by members. The Senior Policy and Scrutiny Project Officer explained the programme of Carbon Literacy that was in development to increase understanding of the climate change challenge and the role of the council. It was the intention for this to be rolled out to members and employees later in the year….
The officer highlighted the scale of change in transport that would be needed, a 70% reduction from normal levels similar to lockdown level.
And with that, finally I arrive at the point I want to arrive at. Council members and employees were to be subjected to a programme of “Carbon Literacy” so that they can better understand “the climate change challenge and the role of the council.”
How’s that going? Well, just under two years ago, when society was fairly well “locked down”, despite some summer relaxation of the restrictions, I had the sad task of registering a death. Because of coronavirus restrictions, the Council I dealt with (not Cumbria County Council, as it happens, though I believe the policy was adopted by them also) abandoned face-to-face appointments and registered the death via a telephone appointment. I found the process sympathetic and efficient, and it was completed within five days’ of the death. This month our household has, sadly, had to register another death. Coronavirus restrictions have happily been abandoned, but it seems that no lessons have been learned, no dots have been joined. Not only have restrictions been abandoned, but so have the telephone appointments that were working so well. Now we have to attend in person once more, just like the old days. There are just two problems. The first is that this time it has taken 11 days to obtain an appointment (and this is not a criticism of the staff my wife and I have dealt with, who have been sympathetic and helpful). The second is that the Council has closed the Registrar’s function at its small office in town, that is five minutes walk from where we live. Instead we were given the choice of appointments at any of four offices, respectively 15, 30, 30 or 45 miles from where we live, necessitating a round trip of 30, 60 or 90 miles depending on which we choose. Anyone in our small market town (and others) who has to register a death (or, presumably, also a birth or a marriage) will be faced with the same journey options. What was that about “the scale of change in transport that would be needed, a 70% reduction from normal levels”?
So much for the Council. The closing of local offices and the centralising of functions is a national trend. I moved to Cumbria in the year 2000, and, as a brewery solicitor who spent much of my time making licensing applications, was immediately confronted by the closure of Keswick Magistrates’ Court (now a Wetherspoons). Local publicans seeking to make licensing applications had no choice from that date on but to travel to Workington Magistrates’ Court, a round trip of over 40 miles. County courts are closing at quite a rate, too. Do you want to collect a debt? Get divorced? Be prepared for a lot of travelling.
A tragic event which occurred shortly after I moved to Cumbria was the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. There was a time when many towns, big and small, had their own abbatoir. Many have closed, and that trend continues. Indeed, many had already closed by 2001. Did the mass movement of livestock to far-flung abattoirs contribute to the spread of foot and mouth disease? I don’t know, but I can’t help harbouring a suspicion that it might have done. And that’s before we consider the increased greenhouse gas emissions associated with the closure of local facilities.
Meanwhile, out-of-town shopping has been encouraged by the authorities, with all the damage it has caused to local High Streets, and the inevitable increase in emissions associated with it.
But never mind. At least the NHS is on the case. Remember this?
…the Long Term Plan commitment to better use technology to make up to 30 million outpatient appointments redundant, sparing patients thousands of unnecessary trips to and from hospital.
All well and good, save to the extent that there is evidence that some telephone appointments taking place instead of face-to-face appointments have resulted in missed diagnoses, which in turn have resulted in tragically unnecessary deaths. What a farce it all is. A deliberate strategy of reducing in-person health appointments, with the avowed aim of reducing travel, so as to “save the planet”, only for some of the resulting telephone appointments to result in missed diagnoses leading to unnecessary deaths, which then have to be reported in person at a far-flung Registrar’s office, with all the consequent extra travel associated with that. Farce doesn’t seem like too strong a word. Is anyone in a position of authority joining the dots?
Climate Scepticism 
Sounds like an awful number of people round your way are wearing new and fancy new hats spreading more and more headed notepaper dealing with more and more subdivisions of this dangerous climate Armageddon. And you haven’t touched 20oC yet. Goodness Cumbria’s climate must have been simply awful before climate change came along. Yet the Council want to stop it. They really haven’t joined the dots have they. Mind you riding your bikes to far distant central offices must keep you warm.
Makes you wonder just how big climate change officialdom has become across the U.K.
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In sunny Norwich we are proud to be the home of a Climate Commission.
https://norwichclimate.org/
The front page has 8 panes with cool pics of Norwich in them. Alas, of the 7, only one is clickable (“Net Zero”). The ones that might tell us how to get there – Energy, Commercial Buildings, Transport, Retrofit, Housing, Land Use, Flooding and Nature – are mere photos with nothing behind them. Perhaps the website is still being built. If so, they ought not to have advertised it in the local Citizen mag.
The Commissioners themselves, as you might expect (“About”) are to a member just the sort of people you would put forward to give serious advice about how to make a city “Net Zero.”
The following, entirely feasible, recommended pathway for Norwich’s emissions was helpfully produced for the Commission by the Tyndall Centre:
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Alan, I was going to say that although my local knowledge relates to Cumbria, I suspect this sort of thing is rife in every Council up and down the country. And then Jit goes and confirms that at your end of these islands, things are indeed the same. As for that recommended pathway for Norwich’s emissions, I followed the link and found this:
“The Tyndall Centre in Manchester has also prepared a report on how Norwich can stay within its carbon budget, with the graph below showing the significant fall in emissions required over the next two decades. However, this can only be achieved if central government policy provides the necessary resources and incentives for all all sectors of the economy.”
As always, necessary resources and incentives are needed. Euphemistically, this has to be forthcoming from central government, which of course means you and me, as taxpayers, since where does the government get money other than from tax and from borrowing (which has to be repaid by later generations of taxpayers)? Aren’t we always being told that this stuff is cheap and better than the alternative? Funny, then, how it always seems to cost us a lot of money while making our lives worse.
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[My previous comment was edited for a typo.]
Mark, you can see some of the other cities with Climate Commissions at https://www.pcancities.org.uk/climate-commissions
Although some of the cities are not in fact cities. But still. (The residents of Croydon will be pleased to know that their “Climate Crisis Commission” is now completed.)
Norwich also has a Climate and Environment Emergency Executive Panel. The wider county (sorry Alan) has a Norfolk Climate Change Partnership.
The city council has just had a £625,000 heat pump fitted in City Hall, “taking a step closer to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2030.” My prediction is that they have taken a step towards more expensive heating bills. Don’t worry! The locals didn’t pay for it. The funds came from a grant. So all you good folks from elsewhere in the UK helped to pay for it. Kind thanks to you from the people of Norwich.
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There is a postscript to the article. Today we made our round trip of 30 miles to register the death. The Registrar who dealt with it was, in fairness, a very lady who was covering for an ill colleague, but it was still more than a little surprising to learn that she had travelled from the south of Scotland and was making a round trip of 110 miles today (and presumably will do so every day for the rest of this week at least). Good to see Cumbria County Council so signed up to the green agenda and driving a 70% reduction in transport from normal levels.
Of course I am being facetious. The point, however, is that Councils and official bodies can bang on about climate change and net zero and all the rest of it as much as they like, taxing us and making life worse for us all along the way as they promote their grandiose schemes. There is, however, a problem – life gets in the way. If the Council was serious, it would employ people who live (say) no more than 5 miles from their place of work. It would never dream of sending members of staff or Councillors long distances to perform Council functions. Yet they do – all the time. They have to if they want to get the job done. And, scaled up to the country as a whole, the same is true.
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It seems it’s not just Cumbria Council failing to join the dots:
“EXCLUSIVE: How the boss of Orkney council travelled 25,000 miles ‘around the world’ commuting to work
Council chief John Mundell has asked taxpayers to pay for his commute from the Edinburgh area to Orkney for so long it’s enough to make it right around the world, we can reveal.”
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/politics/scottish-politics/4545196/orkney-council-travel-expenses/
“Council chief John Mundell has asked taxpayers to pay for his commute from the Edinburgh area to Orkney for so long it’s enough to make it right around the world, we can reveal.
The “temporary” authority boss has claimed around £75,000 in expenses to cover the journey by plane, ferry and car since taking the post on an interim basis three years ago.
The spending dwarfs the amount claimed by other council chief executives in Scotland.
Our investigation found Mr Mundell claimed more than £24,000 in expenses last year as he made 65 trips between Scotland’s capital and the Orkney Islands.
A total of 49 of the journeys were flights and a further 16 were by car and ferry.
Despite his travel leaving a vast carbon footprint, he also claimed expenses to attend the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow last November.
Mr Mundell claimed £21,675 in expenses during the previous year, including 27 trips by plane and another 16 visits by road and sea.
The distance covered in the last two years alone is equivalent to the circumference of the planet.
Some of the travel was made during periods of lockdown restrictions during the pandemic.”
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“Climate emergency council reverses remote meetings policy”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-62303384
“A “horrifying” decision to resume in-person council meetings despite climate worries has been criticised by members.
South Somerset District Council declared a climate emergency in May 2019 and took various steps to reduce its environmental impact.
It began holding live-streamed virtual meetings during the pandemic, with full council meetings only recently being held in person again.
The council has voted to meet in public until April 2023 despite opposition.
Measures put in place after declaring a climate emergency include installing solar panels on the council buildings and investing in leisure centres to make them more energy efficient.
However, Liberal Democrat councillor Henry Hobhouse told the full council in Yeovil on Thursday he objected to the in-person council meeting requirement.
According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service he said: “I am absolutely horrified by this council.
“Almost every single one you voted in favour of [declaring] a climate change emergency, and every single one of you is not thinking about what this is going to do to us and our fuel use over the next year.”
He added: “If you don’t like it, either say that you don’t believe in the climate emergency or you will have to seriously look at your consciences.”
Conservative councillor Nick Colbert agreed, stating: “It’s a bit like Greta Thunberg jetting around the world to tell us not to jet around the world.”…”.
Personally, I think in-person meetings, which can be attended by the public, are important for the efficient and open functioning of local democracy. However, as some of the councillors point out, you either believe in a climate emergency or you don’t…
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I’m all in favour of rogue developers being held to account, and not being allowed to get away with flouting planning laws, but this story seems a little disproportionate:
“Woolwich: Developers ordered to demolish ‘mutant’ apartment blocks”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66934296
The breaches that (as reported by the BBC, at least) justify a demolition order?
Greenwich Council is one of many to declare a climate emergency:
https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/info/200327/climate_emergency
It has a carbon neutral plan which extends to buildings. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the alleged planning breach in this case, the CO2 emissions associated with building, demolishing, and (presumably) re-building this development must be enormous. Somebody in the Council seems to me to be failing to join the dots.
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One of the Guardian journalists I still respect seems to agree with me regarding the mad demolition notice served by Greenwich Council (and FWIW I agree with the general thrust of his article too):
“Spare these London flats the wrecking ball. But no more eyesore tower blocks please
Simon Jenkins
Whatever the outcome of this battle between developer and local authority, high-rise blocks should not be the future”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/28/woolwich-mast-quay-tower-blocks-britain-high-rise
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There’s more from Birmingham:
“Birmingham council votes to demolish brutalist landmark
Campaigners fighting to save the Ringway Centre say removing it would be ‘devastating assault on city’s postwar heritage’”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/birmingham-council-votes-to-demolish-brutalist-landmark-ringway-centre
I don’t have a dog in that fight, but it’s interesting how Councils’ claims to worry about “carbon” emissions don’t seem to count for much when they want to demolish something.
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