Boost your TIP: Climate Change
The Towns Fund Delivery Partner is sharing blog posts covering topics that we believe can enhance your Town Investment Plans. This blog post focuses on Climate Change.
On the 9th December 2020, the UK Committee on Climate Change released the UK’s Sixth Carbon Budget Assessment, the first carbon budget since the country’s 2019 declaration to be net zero carbon by 2050. Against the backdrop of increasing climate emergency declarations by local authorities across the country, it sets out the national transition that will be needed to deliver on the UK’s net zero ambition. The Sixth Carbon Budget is just one of several recently published documents that serve as useful strategic context for Towns developing their TIPs.
Net zero and clean growth is considered one of the many strategic goals towns are encouraged to contribute towards. The Towns Fund guidance sets out that: “Towns are encouraged to make interventions that increase resilience and prosperity and contribute to the UK’s overarching goal to be zero carbon by 2050”. However, Towns are working hard to deliver lots of positive outcomes through their TIPs - it can be easy to lose sight of how the proposals support the zero-carbon goal.
To support towns boost their TIPs, we have prepared the summary note “National Strategic Brief: Climate Change”, which provides a quick overview of the policy and evidence landscape for climate change action in the UK. Having an awareness of the policy landscape and potentially reading one or two of the key reports will help you to consider how your TIP, and the individual projects within it, can better respond to the challenge of climate change by either supporting emissions reduction or adapting to climate risks.
The key documents and existing policy commitments identified and summarised in the summary note – relating to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are:
UK’s Nationally Determined Contribution
UK Sixth Carbon Budget and UK Fifth Carbon Budget
Net Zero – The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming. UKCCC, 2019
Net Zero – Technical Report. UKCCC, 2019. [Accompanying Report 1]
Reducing UK emissions: 2020 Progress Report to Parliament. UKCCC, 2020
Road to Net Zero Strategy. Office for Low Emission Vehicles, 2018
Clean Growth Strategy. BEIS, 2018
Clean Growth Strategy. BEIS, 2018
The key climate adaptation documents in the summary note include:
UK Climate Change Risk Assessment
Progress in preparing for climate change
UK Climate Projections
A Green Future: Our 25-Year Plan to Improve the Environment
Flood risk assessments: climate change allowances
The National Adaptation Programme
In preparing your TIPs, you should have an ambition that your suite of projects - individually and together - will make a positive contribution to reducing GHG emissions and to addressing climate risks. We expect there to be challenges and barriers to achieving this, but we want to support you in bringing forward TIPs that integrate climate positive interventions.
What next?
If you are developing projects for your TIP or business case in which you want to apply more climate change and resilience consideration, talk to your Town Coordinator or book an Expert Drop-in Hour with one of our Climate Change and Resilience experts. Our team can provide critical review, support Check and Challenge, help you to access your local climate risks and emissions profiles and provide more tailored support, where helpful.