Tom Levitt has praised East Midlands local authorities for their commitment to tackle climate change and promised them the tools to deliver on Government targets. Speaking to the Adaptation 2009 event in Leicester on 29 January, the Deputy Regional Minister cited projects in his own High Peak constituency, Moors for the Future and the Torrs Hydropower project, as examples of good and essential practice.

Tom Levitt speech - Adaptation 2009: Tackling Climate Change

I am very pleased to join you today. Phil Hope, the Regional Minister, has been unavoidably called away and has asked me to speak on his behalf.

Let me give thanks to Ross Wilmott and his team here in Leicester, for their hard work in helping put together a programme that offers something of interest and importance to everyone.

And thank you all for coming to show your commitment, including those of you who are spies from regions other then the East Midlands, coming to learn from us here today.

I know that Phil, as Regional Minister, has spent much of his time over recent months working with others in the region to try to alleviate the effects of the current economic situation. 

This is the immediate priority for all of us.

But now at the time of an economic downturn would be the wrong time to row back on our ambitions on tackling climate change.

The Stern Report made clear that the costs of ignoring climate change will, in the long term, far outweigh the costs of acting immediately. 

Our best way forward lies in creating an economy based around energy efficiency and low carbon technologies which offer opportunity for investment, jobs and financial savings. 

The sooner and more effectively we adopt this approach the more solidly-based will be our economic recovery.

As Price Waterhouse Cooper East Midlands has said today, urging businesses to act, “Carbon management… is one area where companies can reduce risk, reduce cost, engage stakeholders, and identify opportnitise” and “the carbon agenda has already moved from debate to action.”

There is a lot happening to address climate change.

We have created a new Department for Energy and Climate Change to lead and focus the Government’s approach.

Particularly with regard to addressing the causes of climate change at home and abroad. 

The Climate Change Bill received Royal Assent in November, the first time any Government in the world has laid down its climate change ambitions in law, such is our level of commitment.

The Energy Bill which complements the Climate Change Bill has also received Royal Assent, paving the way amongst other things for a new generation of local green energy production, such as is being pioneered by the Torrs Community Hydropower scheme in my constituency.

A Europe-wide EU 2020 package was finalised just before Christmas and we have succeeded in having aircraft emissions included in the European Emissions Trading Scheme.

The Climate Change Act makes us the first country to have a statutory framework to cut emissions, to adapt to climate change and move towards a low carbon economy. 

Setting targets is the easy bit, meeting them is more difficult. 
That’s why we will also be putting in place five-year carbon budgets and setting out how we will adhere to them. 

Work has already started.  On 1 December last year the independent Committee on Climate Change advised on the first three carbon budgets.

We plan to announce these alongside this year’s spring Budget and embed them through secondary legislation and publish the policies and proposals that will help us live within these budgets.  

However effective the measures we take now, greenhouse gases hang around a long time in the atmosphere.

No matter how successful the peoples of the world are in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions past activity means that the climate will continue changing for at least another 40 years or so, causing problems for every country in the world, rich and poor, industrialised and developing.

Because of this, as well as strong measures on addressing the causes of global warming, the Climate Change Act also requires us to carry out, every five years, a UK-wide risk assessment into the effects of climate change.

We remember the heat wave in 2003 which was linked to almost 15,000 excess deaths in France.

It has been calculated that temperatures here in the East Midlands could rise by as much as 5 degrees by the 2080s.

We remember floods in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire in the last two years caused by freak levels of rain.

Such extreme weather-related events will become more common.

There are other future threats

The sea level is rising and the Lincolnshire coast - prime agricultural land, much of it less than 5m above sea level - will increasingly become threatened with inundation.

We will publish a programme setting out what we need to do to address such impacts.  

We will also have a Committee which will scrutinise the national Climate Change Risk Assessment for the whole of the UK and will look at the implementation of a statutory National Adaptation Programme for England, developed from the results of that risk assessment.

Under the Act, Government can also require public bodies and statutory undertakers, such as utilities companies, to carry out their own risk assessments and make plans to address those risks.

Statutory guidance is being developed that will set out the processes that organisations need to go through to assess the risks from climate change and draw up adaptation plans. 

To give a specific example of what needs doing: in my own constituency of High Peak, it is vital to stop the peat moorlands of Kinder Scout from drying out. Keeping them wet:

• protects them against moorland fires, which release carbon into the air from this mammoth carbon sink;
• preserves biodiversity locally and, exactly to the point,
• will slow down water run-off from the moors and protect downstream towns as far away as Leicester

Local authorities are at the sharp end in dealing with the impacts of climate change, both on their own services and as leaders of their local communities.

We want to support them in this task. We have introduced an indicator to help local authorities identify and measure their progress on adapting to climate change.

This is the Local Government Performance Indicator NI 188

I am pleased that 7 out of 9 East Midlands Local Area Agreement partnerships have selected it either as a full or local indicator.

This demonstrates that adapting to climate change is now seen as a key priority by local government.

None of this is easy.

We are committed to providing support to help people deliver what needs to be done. 

In addition to advice available from the Carbon Trust and Energy Savings Trust – both represented here today – we have launched a £4m Climate Change Best Practice Programme, being implemented through Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEP).

I know you have already had an opportunity to hear Chris Allison say more about the programme of support being developed for the East Midlands. 

At national level we are working with the Nottingham Declaration Partnership, which includes all East midlands local authorities, to develop and deliver a 3 year programme of support for local and regional government on adaptation. 

And the UK Climate Impact Programme (UKCIP) led a consortium to develop guidance to help local authorities deliver against the NI 188 indicator.

I expect some of you will have been to the workshop in Nottingham designed to share approaches and refine that guidance. 

UKCIP will shortly be unveiling new UK Climate Projections which are the fifth generation of climate scenarios for the UK.

These represent the latest views - reflecting scientists' current understanding - of how the climate system operates and how it might change in the future.

We will ensure that support is provided in the region on how to interpret the new climate projections and make the most of the interactive tools available
As I’m sure you are aware, all local authorities and NHS Trusts in the East Midlands have signed up to the Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change.

This represents a high level commitment to taking action on the causes and effects of climate change. 

A sub-regional tool developed by UKCIP that will help deliver on these commitments is the Local Climate Impacts Profile or LCLIP to help assess the impacts of extreme weather. 

I understand that the LCLIP approach has been well received by the 9 city and county councils that took part in early regional studies.

All have now started working with their district authorities and other public sector bodies to explore the sorts of climate impacts that might affect service delivery and reputation:

For example, extreme weather patterns may cause: 

• staff to struggle to get to work;
• buildings to be damaged or temporarily put out of action;
• travel to be disrupted;
• physical and mental health to be adversely affected. 

Use of this tool has been developed further in the East Midlands through a region-wide pilot and through innovative trials by Nottingham City NHS Primary Care Trust.

I am pleased that part of this LCLIP work is being supported by government through the Regional Climate Change Partnership.

The partnership is playing a key role in raising awareness, building capacity and instigating action across the region.

It is doing an excellent job in promoting adaptation as well as mitigation, and was intending to launch the Climate Change Programme of Action for the East Midlands today.  But instead we are taking the opportunity to include the launch in a visit to the region by Hilary Benn, Defra Secretary of State, on 9 February.

The Programme represents a public statement of commitment by the main regional bodies – the Regional Assembly, emda, the Environment Agency and the Government Office for the East Midlands to act on the causes and consequences of climate change. 

As our knowledge of climate change grows daily so, too, will this document evolve through contributions from others.

And it will be supported by implementation plans that are being developed with help from across the region and will be delivered in the same way – by all of us.

I am sure that you would like to join me in offering thanks to our regional Climate Change Co-ordinator, Mike Peverill, for his commitment and hard work in putting the Programme of Action together. 

When I sit down, Mike will explain the content and direction of the document to you in more detail and how you can contribute to its implementation.

Before I end I would like to take this opportunity to bring to your attention an adaptation booklet that we have produced on behalf of the regional partnership and which is published today. 

It reports a diverse range of activities and projects being delivered by East Midlands’ partnerships, authorities, organisations and individuals which is putting us ahead of the game in adapting to climate change. 

Phil Hope has asked me to thank everyone featured for letting us learn from their example.  

Finally, I want to leave you with three challenges. 

Firstly, that we shouldn’t lose sight of the importance of the economy.  
We must ensure that as a region we are making the most of any economic opportunities offered by a changing climate. 

Either by adapting what we do to make the most of the new opportunities the changing climate offers directly or indirectly, by developing goods and services that will help others to adapt what they do.

Secondly, that we in the public sector all set ourselves the task of leading by example. 

There is a particular challenge here for our local authorities who, as I have already mentioned, are at the business end of all of this activity.

The challenge to local authorities is to take their regional leadership a step further by making us among the first regions, perhaps the first region, to have all of our local authorities signed up to a carbon management programme. 

I know that if the local authorities take up that challenge the Carbon Trust and Energy Saving Trust will respond and provide all the support they can to see those commitments through to successful completion of the programme.

Finally, that we should all consciously adopt a low or zero carbon approach in everything we do, from the development of our regional strategies and plans, through the daily operations of our organisations, offices and businesses to our individual choices as consumers.

As we saw so graphically in the last presentation, Hard Rain, climate change is one of a variety of challenges which confront those of us who want a better and more sustainable world.

But it is more than the latest fad or the campaign of the moment.
It really is a question of saving the very planet we inhabit.

We need to, we must do, we wll work together for that goal.

Thank you