Nottingham City Council and Climate Change

Written By Alison Mcguire

Nottingham has been concerned about how to deal with Climate Change for some time now.

Keep reading to find out what has been happening locally, to tackle climate change globally.

 

The Nottingham Declaration

In 2011, the Council led a group of Local Authorities in putting together a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Environment and Climate Change (since merged to become the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy or BEIS).

The memorandum recognises that:

·        Evidence continues to mount that climate change is occurring. ­

·        Climate change will have far reaching effects on the UK’s economy, society, and environment.

It welcomes:

  • The­ Social, economic, and environmental benefits which will come from combating climate change. ­

It recognises:

The targets for Carbon Reduction in the Climate Change - UK Programme and sees the ­opportunity for local government to lead the response at a local level - to reduce their energy costs, to reduce congestion, to improve the local environment and to deal with fuel poverty in our communities. ­

It commits Local Authorities to:

  • Prepare a plan with our local communities, by December 2020, to address the causes and effects of climate change and to secure maximum benefit for our communities.

  • Publicly declare within the plan the commitment to achieve a significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from our own authority’s operations. These include energy sourcing and use, travel and transport, waste production & disposal and the purchasing of goods and services.

  • Encourage all sectors in the local community to take the opportunity to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions and to make public their commitment to action.­

  • Work with key providers, including health authorities, businesses, and development organisations, to assess the potential effects of climate change on our communities and identify ways we can adapt

  • Provide opportunities for the development of renewable energy generation within our area.

  • Monitor the progress of our plan against the actions needed and publish the results.

Action Plan for Consultation

In 2020, the City Council issued an Action Plan for consultation which has now been adopted.

This covers both direct actions and areas where private enterprises and communities need encouragement. This document stresses the need for everyone in the city to work together and highlights several areas where Carbon Reduction and Carbon Removal need to take place. There are also sections on Resilience and Adaptation and Ecology and Biodiversity.

The areas of action on Carbon Reduction proposed are:

  • Transport

  • Build Environment

  • Energy Generation

  • Waste and Water

  • Consumption

Targets have been outlined for Carbon Reduction by 2028 concerning Direct and Indirect energy related CO2 Emissions. These targets do not include imported emissions (from products bought here but made elsewhere, for instance) and these need to be tackled after 2028.

In each section of the Action Plan, the work the city can do with its own estate and activities is highlighted, along with actions that can be done in partnership to help others in the city meet the targets.

The second part of the document dealing with Carbon Removal focuses on natural means of removing carbon (such as growing trees and natural sinks) and the process of offsetting.

The third part of the document dealing with Resilience and Adaptation focuses on flooding and extreme weather events.

The fourth part of the document dealing with Ecology and Diversity focuses on increasing the ecological quality of habitats.

In all parts of the document, there is an emphasis on the benefits to health and wellbeing that can come from undertaking the actions in the Action Plan.

Progress since the Nottingham Declaration

Nottingham has taken it’s commitments seriously, and has been particularly successful in using renewable energy generation as way of providing income, helping to offset the very real budget cuts imposed by central government.

Nottingham’s 2028 Net Zero Charter

In late 2019 Nottingham City Council launched it’s 2028 Net Zero Charter, an ambitious pledge to become Net Zero as a City by 2028. This was the earliest pledge of any city in the UK. The document has been carefully researched and intelligently thought through, arguing for very severe initial cuts in carbon where the city has the power to act. This gives more time to tackle those areas where the City Council doesn’t have direct control to achieve full neutrality by 2050 - the UK Government’s overall target.

The graph from the charter highlights how this would work.

Click to enlarge

How well is Nottingham doing so far?

In 2021, Nottingham published it’s first look at how it’s doing with CN2028.

The report headlines suggest that Nottingham is on track to be the first Carbon Neutral City in the UK by 2028.

However, embedded in the depth of the report is the following line of text.

“As a city we need to reduce our emissions by just over one million tonnes of CO2 by 2028, greater than a 22% rate of decrease between now and then. Currently, we are decreasing at a rate of an average of 4% per year.”

This statement has led some residents to question whether the approach needs to be much more radical.

This review by Alan Simpson makes a series of suggestions as to how the programme could be accelerated.

Transport in Nottingham

In 2019, 31% of Nottingham’s total CO2 emissions came from our transport network.

Action is required to reduce car journeys, increase cycling and walking, improve public transport and transition to more low emission vehicles. Through this, we can achieve better air quality, mobility, and health for our citizens.

Current activites, actions, and programmes

  • Workplace Parking Levy (WPL)

  • Investment in biogas and electric bus fleet

  • Personal journey planning and shared transport solutions

  • Hackney and private hire vehicle strategy

  • 45% of Nottingham City Council owned fleet is ULEV, 100% by 2028

  • Go Ultra Low Nottingham - Building charging infrastructure for electric vehicles

The Built Environment

Nottingham has over 135,000 domestic properties, of which around 26,000 are social housing owned by the City Council.

Since 2012, over 7,000 social and private hard-to-treat homes have been insulated and over 4,000 social housing properties benefiting from solar panels. In 2020/21, Nottingham City Council secured over £13m in funding for domestic energy efficiency retrofits, with over 1,200 homes set to benefit from the domestic retrofit programme.

In the coming decade, Nottingham will have to improve the efficiency of all buildings to reduce the energy demand. We will need to heat our buildings with low carbon and/or renewable heating, change our behaviours towards energy reduction, and increase the adoption of energy efficiency technologies in commercial and domestic buildings.

Current activities, actions, and programmes

  • Over 40,000 energy efficiency measures in local homes.

  • Nottingham City Homes have installed 14,221 boilers, 4,140 loft installations and 12,588 cavity wall measures.

  • A project called REMOURBAN has involved treating over 400 homes with energy saving measures to make them warmer and reduce energy bills.

  • The delivered efficiencies within the District Heating Scheme network have enabled new connections to take place.

Energy Generation

Nottingham has been active in helping to decarbonise electricity. For instance, by December 2020, over 6,400 solar photovoltaic (PV) systems have been installed across the city. We will need to act to significantly expand local low carbon sources of energy with the capacity to store energy within the city and be recognised as a test bed for new energy generating technologies.

Current activities, actions, and programmes

  • An extensive heat network linked to Energy-from-Waste.

  • Solar PV programme on City Council owned estate and on properties across the city.

  • Nottingham has pioneered innovative approaches to renewables, such as solar carports, and working with partners to combine solar PV with domestic, community and commercial energy storage facilities.

  • Nottingham hosts the government (BEIS) funded Midlands Energy Hub to develop local energy action and is collaborating with partners to support the D2N2 Energy Strategy.

  • Broadmarsh PV will generate 190,000 kWh per year, enough to power over 50 domestic homes.

Consumption

The goods we buy have emissions involved in their manufacturing and transport, with items often shipped from around the world. Food and drink in particular have a significant impact on wider and imported emissions, as well as the wider environment and our use of finite resources.

Solutions to decrease emissions include reducing meat and dairy, reducing transport miles, and sourcing from less energy intensive forms of production.

Current activities, actions and programmes

  • Development of a sustainable food strategy for Nottingham.

  • Use of local suppliers by Nottingham City Council’s Catering Services to reduce food miles and reduce food waste in school kitchens.

  • Reducing single-use consumption of products, particularly plastics.

Ecology & Biodiversity

Climate change is causing reduced biodiversity, reduced habitats, and increased pressure on all natural and green spaces. The pandemic has shown how important our green spaces are for helping us connect with nature, providing peace and solace in challenging times, as well as playing a significant role in reducing the impacts of climate change.

Current activities, actions and programmes

  • Our Tiny Forest projects continue with a view to planting towards the end of 2021.

  • We have planted 14,500 new trees so far with an aim of planting 50,000 trees in total by 2023.

  • We have reduced the number of times we mow the grass in some areas, allowing more wildflowers to grow attracting more bees and insects to pollinate the flowers.

Water & Waste

Only 7.1% of Nottingham city waste ends up in landfill, with the vast majority that cannot be recycled going for incineration.

Nottingham City Council has saved over 96,000m3 of water during 2020/21 by identifying leaks and improving water management.

In 2018-19, 113,000 tonnes of household waste were produced by Nottingham, of which 26.5% was reused, recycled, or composted. 64.5% was sent for energy recovery, and 7.0% was sent to landfills.

We need to reduce the volume of all waste and eliminate it from landfill, increase the reuse and recycling of waste, and use the rest for energy. Water use must be managed effectively.

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Alison Mcguire
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