Agenda item

Stephanie Holt-Castle, Director for Growth and Communities was in attendance for this item.

1) Miss Carey introduced the report. KCC had aligned its work with the 4 key goals of COP26. The 26^th Conference of Parties was to be held in Glasgow and had raised the profile of the environmental agenda. It was hoped that by aligning with the goals, significant progress could be made for Kent and for the planet.

2) Ms Holt-Castle said that work had been done to align and look at what areas KCC were taking forward in line with the 4 key objectives of COP26. Goal 1 of COP26 was focussed on the Net Zero agenda which had been discussed at the meeting of Cabinet in September 2021. Goal 2 of COP26 was around adaptation; KCC was a national leader in this area and had been shortlisted by the Local Government Chronicle (LGC) National Awards on Climate Response.

KCC had been invited to present to the government’s Climate Change Committee – Adaptations Sub-Committee. KCC had made practical adaptations in response to the challenge of climate change and had engaged partners and public. There were 3 key areas of adaptation: methodology and analysis; application on the ground and different tools that partners could use - maximising the ability of everyone to look at adaptation.

The 3-pronged approach included Plan Bee – pollinator plan; Plan Tree and Natural Solutions to Climate Change. KCC was pioneering in having a Climate Change Risk and Impact Assessment in 2019 as one of the first local authorities in England to have this assessment. The Climate Change Risk and Impact Assessment had been refreshed. It was thought that for Kent, climate change would result in warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers. It was expected that extreme weather events would occur more frequently. As well as challenging impacts to Kent and Medway, there would also be opportunities. There would be challenges in terms of the impact to agricultural land, changes to some of the crops, overheating in public buildings, habitat loss, flooding and disruption to travel.  In terms of opportunities, it was expected that there would be decreased excess winter mortality amongst the elderly, reduced energy in buildings, longer growing seasons, increased soft fruit production and viticulture.

There was an adaptation programme across 7 key sectors: agriculture, natural environment, people and the built environment, local government, transport, industry and utility. A report was being taken to the Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee on 3 November 2021 and there would be a consultation in 2022.

The government had announced funding which would support work on climate change: sustainable transport, support for businesses to adopt low carbon technologies, decarbonisation of public buildings, grants for housing including social housing amongst other funding streams.

Work was being done with finance colleagues to understand the impact of the budget announcements on existing capital and revenue plans for meeting Net Zero and for climate change.

Partnership working was important for meeting the challenges of climate change. KCC worked with partners in the Kent and Medway Environment Group, which was chaired by Canterbury City Council.

Kent Green Action was KCC’s public-facing campaign, which took all the strategies, analysis and tools and translated these for Kent individuals and communities so that they would feel inspired and empowered to play their part.

3) Members asked questions and the following points were noted:

·       Concerns were raised that some of the most serious ‘polluters’ were not engaged and involved with COP26. Global impacts are driven by others but it was important for KCC to do everything possible to achieve Net Zero.

·       Concerns were raised that not enough funding was forthcoming for school adaptations but it was noted that work helping schools to lower emissions had already been undertaken and had delivered good results.

·       It was also noted that there were environmental champions whose role had been updated, work had been undertaken with developers and Kent Developers’ Group and on the Kent Design Guide.

·       Plan Bee and the Plant a Tree scheme had caught people’s imaginations and had been very successful. There were challenges in assisting individuals to know how they were able to contribute and it was important to embed these concepts across the organisation.

·       Further work around flood resilience was to be taken forward and it was noted there were implications for the KCC estate

·       KCC had undertaken extensive work to reduce carbon emissions by 73% in the previous 10 years and was to be reduced by a further 40% by March 2022.

4) RESOLVED to note the report.