Councils can access free tools to monitor their greenhouse gas emissions
A third of local areas in the UK experienced their hottest year on record in 2023, according to last month’s edition of first.
For the first time, the global average temperature stayed consistently 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.
‘Keeping 1.5 alive’ has been the goal of people working in the climate field since the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The fact that this goal is becoming more challenging means that we must all step up our efforts to respond to the climate emergency.
Thankfully, there was some good news on this front recently, when the UK’s Third Carbon Budget (running from 2018 to 2022) was found to have been met with a surplus.
This was partly down to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.
Under the Climate Change Act 2008, carbon budgets are the legal targets for UK greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over a five-year period.
The Climate Change Committee, the independent body that holds the UK Government to account on emissions, congratulated it, but advised unequivocally that surplus emissions must not be carried forward to loosen later carbon budgets.
Councils have a hugely important role to play regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK.
The build-up to the recent local elections will have no doubt involved many interesting conversations on doorsteps, as voters scrutinised what each party and what each individual councillor proposes to do when it comes to climate change.
The first step in reducing emissions is to identify the main sources of them, and then to look at those over which a council has control and influence.
Councils must look at GHG emissions produced by their own services, and those produced by other organisations in their areas.
Local Partnerships (the in-house public sector consultancy jointly owned by the LGA, HM Treasury and Welsh Government), the LGA, and the Crown Commercial Service have provided free tools for councils to use to account for their emissions since 2020.
These can be found at Local Partnerships’ resource hub
More than 280 councils have downloaded the tools, and over 100 have contributed to their development.
The aim is to achieve consistency in GHG accountancy across the public sector. If councils are using the same tools then it is easier to compare experiences and to share best practice.
There are two tools: one to account for GHG emissions across a wide spectrum, and one that is specific to emissions produced from the collection and disposal of waste.
The tools are updated based on user feedback, which can be sent to [email protected].
A virtual event discussing the latest updates to the greenhouse gas tools, which I chaired, took place in May, and presentations from the event are available.