Action plan on climate change

A BOOM in renewable energy, zero carbon homes and alternatives to cars is needed in the South West if the region is to avoid climate change disaster, an action plan has insisted.

Influential regional bodies have promised to dramatically reduce the amount of carbon emissions generated by buildings, transport and industry – the major contributors to the South West's carbon footprint.

Signatories of the region's first Climate Change Action Plan are also preparing for the increased possibility of extreme weather events such as the flash flooding that devastated the Cornish village of Boscastle four years ago.

Sir Simon Day, chairman of the South West Regional Assembly, one of five organisations behind the plan, said: "We are taking seriously the immense challenge that confronts us, which is probably the most important issue of the 21st century."

The South West Regional Development Agency, Government Office for the South West, the Environment Agency and Natural England have all signed-up.

But environmentalists questioned why the plan stopped short of setting a region-wide target for a reduction in carbon emissions. Aviation has also been discounted.

Instead, efforts in the South West will feed into the government's goal of enforcing a steep decrease in carbon emissions of 60 per cent by 2050. The seven-county-wide region contributes 8 per cent of the UK's total carbon emissions.

The authors of the plan argue that regional policymakers have limited control over many decisions which affect the production of greenhouse gases, such as central government investment in highways.

Instead, the action plan intends to "build momentum" among regional organisations, and in turn district and county councils and communities, over the next two years.

Mark Robins, chairman of the regional assembly's climate change task group, said the significance of the action plan was that it represented a serious pledge from major players.

He added that they should be brought to book if they fall short of a series of individual measurements, such as increasing the number of councils to publish their own climate change strategy.

Mr Robins went on: "It would be very good if people held these agencies to task if, in a year's time, they had not made any progress.

"The public's appetite for positive action on climate change is great and it is vital that action at a regional level connects to and takes account of the groundswell of action already happening within our communities."

Among a battery of tasks it has set down for the next two years, the action plan aims to increase insulation in the existing housing stock and slash the private sector's carbon footprint. It also wants sustainable transport plans, such as car-sharing schemes and greater investment in buses and trains, to be commonplace.

Organisations involved will use their financial clout, political influence and environmental expertise to prompt this shift in thinking.

SWRDA, charged with keeping region's economy vibrant, intends to make all its investments carbon-neutral by 2013. It recently declined further funding to Newquay Airport because the redevelopment project contravened its new environmental policies.

The regional assembly, meanwhile, is made up of district and county councillors from across the South West.

Mike Birkin, South West spokesman for Friends of the Earth, said the action plan was right to focus on the existing housing stock, renewable power and transport, but wanted to see some more radical thinking. He added: "The absence of targets does water it down. If you come back to it in a year's time there's nothing to judge it against."

Part of the action plan is to calculate the financial cost to the South West of climate change, a regional equivalent of the hard-hitting Stern Review. This could include coastal erosion, which research suggests could rise from £3.2 million a year at present to £38 million annually by 2080.

The two-pronged action plan sets out, firstly, how the region has to adapt to climate change. This includes identifying areas most vulnerable to flooding, storms and rising sea levels and investing in measures to protect communities and the crumbling coastline.

It states that about 181,000 homes and businesses are at low-to-medium risk from flooding in the South West, a figure that is likely to increase in line with climate change.

The second strand of the plan involves slowing carbon emissions in areas such as construction, big business and transport. New planning guidance could see carbon emissions from new developments reduced by between 35 per cent and 50 per cent by 2016, the plan claims.

It also bills the South West as the "natural home for renewable energy", adding that the region has a massive 1,000MW of wind energy resource that remains untapped.

It says that SWRDA's Wave Hub plan off the Cornwall coast, technology to generate electricity from waves, is a priority.

Richard Cresswell, regional director of the Environment Agency, said: "Even if we dramatically reduce emissions within the region we will still experience climate changes.

"Therefore we must also be prepared for and adapt to the current and predicted impacts. It is essential that we all take action now.

"We need the support of organisations, businesses and individuals throughout the region to ensure we achieve our goals of reducing emissions and adapting to changes that are likely to occur."