ELC Climate Emergency Response

East Lothian Council is currently consulting on its ‘Draft East Lothian Climate Change Strategy’.

Sustaining Dunbar will be finalising and submitting a full response shortly but we would like to encourage as many other individuals and organisations as possible to respond, even if very briefly. The more responses that they receive, the more pressure ELC will face to take a more radical position.The closing date for responses is 5pm on 22nd July.

Some of the key points we will be making in our response are highlighted below.  Please feel free to make use of any of these points in your own response. But please use your own words!

The full Draft of the ELC strategy is available here. It is very lengthy (99 pages document) and not an easy read. The key actions proposed are on pages 82-97.  Do at least read the Executive Summary which is only four pages long. East Lothian Council is inviting comments and suggestions:

By post to: Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Officer, Strategic Investment and Economic Development, East Lothian Council, John Muir House, Brewery Park, Haddington, East Lothian, EH41 3HA

By email to: climatechange@eastlothian.gov.uk

Or by completing this online consultation questionnaire. 

Our Key Points

General Comments

• We recognise the large amount of detailed work that had gone into producing the draft strategy. But it falls far short of what we believe is necessary to mobilise and guide the urgent action across all sectors and every area of society necessary to face up to the Climate Emergency. We need an East Lothian Climate Emergency Response Plan.
• ‘Climate Change’ is now recognised to be an inappropriate term for the unprecedented global emergency that we face. The time for a gradual, incremental approach has passed. It is now clear that only very rapid and drastic emission cuts will give us any chance of avoiding catastrophic environmental breakdown.
• We propose that every community and all sectors in East Lothian must be supported to develop their own Climate Emergency Response Plans. Tapping into local capacity, knowledge and collective intelligence will be essential to enable communities to cope with unpredictable challenges and to develop locally appropriate solutions for meeting local needs in a net-zero carbon future.
• Whilst tackling the Climate Emergency will be hugely challenging it is also an opportunity to reverse biodiversity loss, to tackle inequality and fuel poverty, to create many more local jobs and to properly focus on what is actually necessary to support and enhance wellbeing for all across East Lothian

 

Vision for East Lothian

 The strategic Vision for the Draft Climate Change Strategy is:

‘We will work in partnership to achieve an even more prosperous, fair and sustainable East Lothian, with flourishing low carbon communities and a thriving low carbon economy, contributing to national and international efforts to reduce carbon emissions.’

• We question the desirability of a vision of “an even more prosperous” East Lothian. Prosperity implies increasing consumption -which is a key driver of the climate crisis and environmental breakdown and of widening inequality and reducing wellbeing.
• We feel that a sharper vision for emergency action, backed with headline, quantifiable achievements and timescales, is needed. We believe that East Lothian Council could be considerably bolder in its ambition, for example in using its convening powers to engage and support communities across East Lothian to develop their own emergency action plans.

Draft Actions

• The proposed actions, although good in themselves need to be much more ambitious, impactful and urgent in order to address the situation we find ourselves in.
• To ensure that East Lothian is in the best position possible to face up to the Climate Emergency, the plan will need clear actions to enhance and support the resilience of individuals, communities, our food system, the wider economy, our environment and infrastructure.

Outcome 1. ‘Low Carbon and Sustainable Council’

• Early and rapid emissions reductions are key and the Council must show strong leadership and set a very clear example through its own actions. This must not just be the responsibility of a few service managers and the Climate Change Officer but requires a deep engagement with all ELC staff at all levels across all departments.
• All school staff and children must be similarly engaged and mobilised -to rapidly reduce emissions from the school estate, regenerate biodiversity in school grounds and to re-orientate the school curriculum to give our young people the best possible preparation for the uncertain and challenging future they will be facing.
• Clear and ambitious metrics combined with open and frequent public reporting of progress, including honest reflection on difficulties faced, will be essential in creating the framework for wider action across East Lothian.

Outcome 2. ‘A resource efficient and sustainable East Lothian’

• We suggest that the first priority should be to support development of local and sectoral Climate Emergency Response Plans. We suggest that Climate Emergency Plans will be needed at the geographic scale of Community Councils as it is at this scale that most people derive a sense of place.

Outcome3. ‘Active Travel and Sustainable Transport are Used for Everyday Journeys’

• A key element must be to reduce the need to travel for everyday activities through suitable place design, and redesign, and support for development of local employment and leisure opportunities.
• A massive reallocation of transport budgets into infrastructure for walking, cycling and public transport will be necessary.

Outcome4. ‘A Place Encouraging a Low Carbon Lifestyle’

See comments for Outcomes 2 and 3 above.

• In addition, land for allotments and community gardens must form part of all future new developments.

Outcome 5. ‘A Low Carbon and Sustainable Economy’

See comments for Outcomes 2, 3 and 4 above.

• Many new local livelihoods opportunities will be created by the move to a more localised and decarbonised economy. It will be essential to ensure provision of flexible and affordable workshop and other workspace of all sorts, including coworking hubs along with appropriate business development and financial support.
• ELC should actively support skills development supply chains essential for zero-carbon communities, such as localised food processing, renewables, housing retrofitting etc. Much can be learned from the ‘Preston Model’ of using local procurement and support for development of social ownership of local supply chains for community wealth building.
• Farmers will need to be supported to develop strategies to rapidly transition to regenerative agricultural methods, to focus on local food production, restoring biodiversity and creating new woodland. Clear targets should be set, for example for increasing levels of soil carbon, woodland area and habitat connectivity so that farming becomes part of the solution instead of the problem.

Outcome 6. ‘A Healthy and Resilient Natural Environment’

See Outcomes 2,3,4 and 5 above.

• In addition, every effort should be made to work with landowners to create wildlife corridors and to develop strategies for upstream flood prevention and carbon sequestration through rewilding of upland areas, including areas currently managed as grouse moors.

Outcome 7: A Well-Adapted East Lothian

• Adaptation will need to go well beyond simply preparing for increasingly extreme local weather events and rising sea-levels, important as this is.
• As a global crisis, we will be increasingly vulnerable to the consequences of climate disruption across the world and will need to be prepared for breakdown of the global economy, mass migration etc..

 

Other comments

There is currently a greatly heightened awareness of the Climate Crisis. But most people feel powerless to bring about change or are very unsure about the most effective actions they can take. East Lothian Council has a key role to play in providing decisive leadership and in supporting individual and community level responses across East Lothian.