Owen Paterson has been accused of “incredible complacency” over climate change after new figures showed his department has slashed spending on helping Britain cope with global warming.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) will spend just £17.2m on domestic “climate change initiatives” this financial year, a 41 per cent decline on the previous 12 months, according to its response to a freedom of information request.

The figures will fuel fears that the Environment Secretary’s personal climate-change scepticism could be exposing the UK to a higher risk of flooding and other global warming consequences.

Bob Ward, policy director at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute, said: “These shocking figures should worry everyone in the UK. Defra is the lead government department for climate change adaptation and is primarily responsible for making the UK resilient to the impacts of global warming, such as increased flood risk,”

Maria Eagle, shadow Environment Secretary, said such a steep drop in domestic climate change initiatives “reveals an incredible level of complacency about the threat to the UK from climate change”.

She added: “This is further evidence that Owen Paterson’s unwillingness to accept the science on climate change is leading him to make the wrong choices on spending cuts within his department.”

[thanks to the Independent for this item: see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-climate-scepticism-blamed-as-owen-paterson-slashes-spendingon-global-warming-9086397.html]

The Local Government and the Climate Agenda seminar involving climate activists and people working with (and against?) local government is to be held at the Quad, in Derby, on Saturday, the 11th of January, 12 noon to 4 pm. Reserve a place: http://local-governmentandclimate.eventbrite.co.uk

This event is being organised by Derby Climate Coalition.

The meeting is being supported by the ACT! Alliance, the Low Carbon Communities Network  (LCCN) , the Midlands Co-Operative Movement and the Campaign against Climate Change.

Chris Church from LCCN, Charles Secrett from ACT!, an Officer from Derby City Council, Darren Hall member of the Bristol Green Capital of Europe 2015 team and officers from  the Campaign against Climate Change will be taking part. Activists from Brent, Manchester and Sheffield will also be there.

Phone 07876595993 for more information.

Overview:

The Derby City Climate Strategy has been published earlier in the month. We will be looking at this, and what other councils are doing.

Despite the gravity of the climate situation we have seen national and local government under-cutting commitments to combating climate change. Without a national lead, coupled with massive attacks upon funding and resources, local governments are also finding it hard to ensure that the climate message is being heard and hard to sustain related activities. This is despite the opportunities for growth in the green economy.

Strands:

• Learning from Bristol, European Green Capital for 2015: Introduced by a member of the 2015 team.
• Report from various areas (including Manchester, Derby, Brent, Sheffield) on climate activities and the interface with local government.
• Looking at examples of Local Government Climate strategies.
• What is happening to recycling?
• Fracking and local government: success in getting local government to oppose fracking.
• Empowering local government: the need for a political campaign.
• Building climate networks.

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The event will be preceded (at 11.30 am) by a short visit to the Council’s Hydro-plant on the river Derwent, which supplies the Council with much of its own energy.  (TBC)

Derby’s Citywide Climate Strategy, which aims to tackle climate change, was given the go-ahead by Derby City Council’s cabinet on November 6.

The strategy lists broad plans aimed at meeting nationally set targets for an 80% cut in emissions by 2050, compared with 1990 levels.

But it says that, despite a positive decrease in emissions, predictions are that the city will not reach its target of an 18% reduction in 2008 levels by 2020.

Two days before the Derby Telegraph said that the  A STRATEGY for how Derby will cut its carbon emissions has been dubbed “toothless” by climate change campaigners.

Read more: http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Derby-climate-change-strategy-dubbed-toothless/story-20029561-detail/story.html#ixzz2kbrv0vfG

At Climate Coalition  Steering group meeting on November 7 we stressed that the quote from 4 November was not meant as a personal attack, rather that with the removal of national targets and the pre-occupation with dealing with austerity meant that Councils are under huge pressure to protect core services at the expense of those they regard as more marginal. Climate mitigation and adaptation are largely falling into this category, both at national and local level – largely because the long term costs and opportunities are not understood. The question is “How do we help Local Authorities understand the implications of this short term thinking as well as selling the benefits of long term community resilience and green jobs?”.

Recent Weird Weather in the UK:

March 2012 was the third warmest on record. Summer 2012 was the second  wettest on record. Spring 2013 was the coldest in 50 years. May & June 2013 the wettest on record.July 2013 the hottest this century.

Speakers:

Ed Sears (University of Exeter)
Ed is a member of the Earth System Science group at Exeter University.  He will report on current scientific understanding of what is influencing our weather and how it connects to climate change.
Dave Green (Fire Brigades Union)
Dave is a fireman and is the National Officer for Floods for the Fire Brigades Union.  He will talk about fighting floods, the potential dangers, and the proposed cut-backs to the Fire Service.
Chris Williamson (Derby North MP)
Chris Williamson is the Shadow Fire Minister. He will talk about the need for Government to tackle Climate Change, and how to respond to impact of erratic weather.

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We’re used to unpredictable weather and all sorts of daily variations – that’s why we talk so much about the weather in Britain!   But the extreme weather of recent years is new.

We in Derby, cocooned by our central heating and air conditioning, may find it difficult to attribute the exceptional and unpredictable weather changes to climate change. We soon forget the freezing weather we had this spring, or the rather warm autumn two years ago, and the floods.

However recent years have seen the deadliest ever tornados in the  tornado belt in the USA, unprecedented flooding in Australia and Pakistan, heat waves and fires in Australia and other parts of the world. And the list goes on.

We brush off the fact that scientists have warned for a long time that global warming would be accompanied by a break down of normal weather and we would see more extreme fluctuations and unpredictability. The Met Office held a meeting of experts in June to find out what the reasons are for this new feature.  Everyone agreed that the movements of the ‘jet stream’ have changed but what is their cause?

Photo shows floods near Barrow upon Trent, Derbyshire, Nov 2012.

Fracking has been in the news and a couple of us in Derby  organised a public discussion,  at very short notice. We invited people to come in to share ideas, and not to have a dogmatic view about fracking. The idea was not to have a ‘expert’ from outside but use our collective expertise.

Despite it being the summer and very short notice, 15 people attended and the discussion was very good, and well informed. A couple of people cam from Nottingham and some people came who we hadn’t seen for some time. We started with the interview with Caroline Lucas from the today  programme on Tuesday.  . 

We also copied the article from  Monbiot 21/8/2013, and some exchanges from the Climate Alliance site on the subject.

This led  us resolving to take the issue up with the Council, and also inside the planned meeting of the Derby Peoples Assembly.

Derby Climate Coalition delivered 1000 surveys to residents in the New Zealand area of Mackworth ward, Derby asking about recycling.  Over a quarter of these were returned.  Most residents wanted to continue to have a kerbside recycling service – and of those expressing an opinion, four out of five do not think the council is doing enough to address climate change.

Continue reading Survey shows residents want council to keep kerbside recycling and give more leadership on climate change. →

To Paul Bayliss
Leader of Derby City Council
30 April, 2013 Continue reading Letter to Paul Bayliss, leader of Derby City Council →