Dealing With Climate Change In Local Government

Climate change has had unprecedented levels of publicity recently with the intergovernmental summit in Copenhagen. It is rather a pity that the result that emanated from the conference did not live up to the hype! However, the Conference, and the recent cold spell, have brought into focus the whole area of climate change and, more importantly, highlighted what needs to be done in order to combat it.

In local government, whilst it may not seem like it yet, this is going to be a big growth area and the legal implications of this diverse new work will range from complex on the one hand to routine on the other. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that there will be a paradigm shift over the next ten years with climate change work becoming central to what local government does.

You might ask why I feel this to be the case? One reason is that there is a whole range of new regulatory burdens for local authority activities; but we are not just talking about regulatory matters here, these are factors that will change the very way local authorities operate and take decisions relevant to their localities.

Take the Carbon Reduction Commitment as an example. The Climate Change Act 2008 set legally binding targets for the reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050. This then filters down through other mechanisms, such as local carbon budgets and mechanisms to encourage or force compliance with the goals. The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, to give it its full title, is one such mechanism.

Coming in on 1 April 2010, the CRC requires energy efficiency improvements from a part of the economy (including local government) that has not been covered by emissions control before. The requirements are under penalty of financial deductions and reputational damage, backed up by a civil and criminal penalties scheme for those that get it wrong inadvertently or deliberately.

Whilst everyone else is focussing on the letter of the law (though the regulations are still awaited), it is the effect on local government itself that is the more interesting point. Decision makers, for example the Cabinet, will need to take account of the "carbon consequences" of decisions in real time. This is because if you have a tight CRC strategy, a decision could be taken with a disastrous carbon consequence (eg the Council is going to make all its buildings open to community use 24/7) which would completely throw it off course and incur financial penalty.

That means that it must be clear at the...