Agenda item

Considered – A report from the Climate Change Policy Officer on the York and North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative and the development of the consultation draft of the Climate Strategy for North Yorkshire Council.

Key points in the report included:

·       Over the past two years, the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (Y&NY LEP) has been leading on the development of the York and  North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative (the ‘Routemap’), which provides a clear, co-owned plan to achieve net zero for the region by 2034 and carbon negative by 2040.

·       To ensure the effective implementation of the Routemap, high-level action plans will develop into detailed implementation plans. As part of these implementation plans, key milestones, success criteria and risks registers will be developed to enable performance to be tracked against the interventions set out in the Routemap.

·       In a linked piece of work, the new Climate Change strategy for North Yorkshire Council (NYC) is at working draft stage and outlines the ambitions, themes and principles to be included. The strategy will outline where NYC can best deploy its resources to contribute to the targets in the Routemap.

·       The new NYC Climate Change Strategy will outline the approach the new Council will take to reduce its own emissions and also to encourage and enable residents, businesses, communities and visitors to take ‘climate positive’ actions. This is in respect of not only reducing the causes of climate change but also to prepare for and respond to the impacts of climate change both on our vulnerable communities and on biodiversity and ecosystems upon which we depend.

·       The approach proposed differs significantly from the current NYCC Carbon Reduction Plan (which focusses on operational activity) as it will include the wider ‘sphere of influence’ and consider how every service can support the achievement of the ambitions.

·       The four key chapters proposed for the draft NYC Climate Change strategy are: Mitigation; Adaption and resilience; Sequestration and carbon capture and Supporting nature.

·       It was noted that partners had raised concerns that Biodiversity was not a standalone chapter, and the merging of chapters three and four has been suggested.

·       The targets and ambitions adopted will reference the UN COP21 targets (The Paris Agreement) to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees celsius while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees. In terms of local targets, it will mirror the York and North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative ambitions and overall target to be a carbon neutral region by 2034 and carbon negative by 2040. Furthermore, NYC will strive to be net zero on operational activity by 2030.

·       The graph at Appendix A of the report on the greenhouse gas emission figures for North Yorkshire shows the addition of Carbon Dioxide in the 2020 data in alongside the Methane and Nitrous Oxide used as part of the 2019 emissions data. It should be noted that the 2020 data for ‘Transport’ was affected by Covid-19. In subsequent years, ‘Waste Management’ is expected to be a bigger factor in the emissions data.

·       The draft North Yorkshire Council Climate Change strategy, following consultation, will be considered by the Executive in May 2023.

There followed a discussion, with the key points as summarised below:

·       A suggestion was made to increase anaerobic digestion generation capacity, but doing this by specifically growing crops to feed the digestor rather than using waste.

·       On the ambition set out in the York and North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative to reduce food waste by 30% by 2030, it was asked how this ambition had been decided upon and how it would be tracked. It was also noted whether the ambition in the Routemap for the decarbonisation of on-farm machinery is realistic.

·       On agriculture, it was asked what dialogue with the National Farmers Union (NFU) has been undertaken as part of the development of the Routemap. It was explained this was through the Y&NY LEP and the Grow Yorkshire link for food and farming businesses. It was noted that the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority is supporting individual farms, with work to begin to look at the whole farm estate across the county, with NYCC using all tools to lead on this where possible.

·       The new NYC Climate Change Strategy would be rolled out across the council through directorate based climate reduction plans. For example, as part of the Economic Development Strategy, a key pillar of this will be the transition to the green economy.

·       On including milestones to check on progress, in terms of the operations of the council, there will be a carbon budget and the setting of interim targets, to provide more information on how the journey is going as part of a KPI measure, such as on the vehicle fleet and buildings emissions.

·       A question was asked about making sure that procurement chains are considering climate change implications. Although these are very hard to measure, it is the aim to work with suppliers on this, with responsibility for ensuring this to sit with the service experts in the directorates, who will be responsible for overseeing this.

·       The ambition in the Routemap to retrofit homes to at least an EPC C rating, with a target of 180,000 homes by 2030 and 250,000 homes by 2038 was questioned. In response, it was noted that the Local Authority Led Housing Retrofit (LAD) scheme is currently ongoing to spend £8m across three districts. In North Yorkshire, it was noted that there is a large number of off-gas homes across the county, which are more expensive to retrofit and include protected landscapes. Work is also ongoing to ramp up the supply chain and grow the market in areas such as double glazing and insulation to allow retrofitting to take place. It is felt a long-term (10 year) approach is needed to have most impact and to give partners confidence, not just being responsive to government grant windows. For example, in Scarborough, the ‘Hitting Hard’ project is about utilising the expanding portfolio of housing decarbonisation funding opportunities for those living off-grid with properties that are harder to heat.

·       It was felt that Education and Engagement are not covered enough in the Routemap to implement the necessary behaviour change in areas such as agriculture, water and sewage discharge.

·       Given the potential loss of commercial bus services across the county, it was asked whether the Routemap ambition to reduce private car usage by 48% by 2030 is a realistic one. It was noted that transport is a major area, with NYCC adopting an innovative approach to progress this ambition, including installing EV chargers in rural areas, introducing and incentivising car sharing and car clubs and promoting Community Transport providers.

·       The ‘Green Schools Project’ education training programme was highlighted as a good example for teaching climate change in schools.

·       With the construction of new housing developments, are there opportunities to prescribe carbon reduction measures such as solar panels and EV charging infrastructure. It was noted that partnership working with North Yorkshire Building Control Partnership (NYBCP) on building regulations is taking place.

·       It was asked whether enforcement action could be taken to improve poor quality insulated properties, with legal requirements required under the EPC. The need for a strategic plan for housing was emphasised, with builders required to fit low carbon technology. The retrofit of business premises with low carbon heating needs the same approach as residential properties.

·       There is different terminology used at various points in the report. This was acknowledged and as part of the strategy document that goes out to consultation, a glossary of key phrases will be included.

During the discussion, County Councillor Steve Mason proposed an amendment that was rejected by the Chairman using their discretion. Subsequently, County Councillor Hannah Gostlow proposed that the motion be amended to add a recommendation that the Executive declare a Biodiversity emergency.  This was seconded by County Councillor Steve Mason. A vote was taken on the proposed amendment to the motion but was lost.

Resolved –

i.               Members views on the York and North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative be noted and taken into account.

ii.              The feedback on the North Yorkshire Council Climate Change Strategy Consultation Draft – working draft stage be noted and taken into account.