LGA calls for climate change statutory duty

The Local Government Association has backed calls for councils to be given a statutory duty to lead on climate action.

The move follows an LGA consultation, which received 308 individual responses, including from 150 local authorities.

In a statement on its website, the LGA said the results “revealed a clear consensus support, which the LGA has adopted as its headline position”.

This position is that “local authorities need statutory duties and powers, sufficient funding and robust support to lead on climate action”.

It said the LGA will undertake “further analysis on the findings and set out our next steps for developing detailed, evidenced, and costed proposals for moving forward”.

The move comes amid increasing politicisation of net zero, with Reform UK winning a majority on 10 councils in this year’s local election after campaigning on its opposition to net zero.

West Northamptonshire Council is set to scrap its net zero targets at a meeting tomorrow, while Darren Grimes (Reform), deputy leader of Durham CC, has tabled a motion for tomorrow’s full council meeting that would “rescind the climate emergency declaration made on 20 February 2019”.

And Linden Kemkaran (Reform), leader of Kent CC, last week said the council’s department of local government efficiency team had “indicated we can avoid a future increase in capital spending by scrapping the net zero renewable energy programme saving £32m over four years,” and could save £7.5m by 2030 by scrapping the transitioning of the council’s vehicles to electric vehicles.

Isaac Beevor, partnerships director at Climate Emergency UK, called on the government to “listen to this strong call from councils and introduce a fully-funded climate statutory duty,” citing the English Devolution & Community Empowerment Bill as a vehicle to do this.

He added: “This is the first time that English councils have collectively called for more responsibility to tackle the climate crisis. Councils have redeclared that tackling the climate crisis continues to be a top priority and that residents want more renewable energy, more homes retrofitted and more frequent and electric public transport.

“This message will resonate across the UK and is a rallying cry for councils to do their utmost to tackle the climate crisis and for the government to fully support local climate action through a funded climate statutory duty.”