This needs all of us: a call to action
Human beings learn through storytelling. There are some stories about the West Midlands that we know well, and share with pride. We changed the world through vision, innovation, and industry. We remade places by using strong local government. We became a region of work, trade, and play, connected in thousands of ways to the world.
Now, we are writing a new volume of the West Midlands story, with new authors, in a new time – but we need these familiar themes to carry through. Once again, we are marshalling our talents and capacity for innovation to meet a global challenge. Local government leadership of place matters more than ever, and we are going to use that leadership to build a movement, from where we are, to where we would like to be. Our strengths in engineering combined with technical innovation will give us an edge that we can sell across the planet. Indeed, we are connected to the world in ways that Boulton and Watt could never have imagined, and we will use those connections to share, learn and trade.
The framework outlined in this paper is the storyboard: it outlines why we need to address climate breakdown and to adapt to climate change the opportunity it provides to create a highly productive, low carbon economy; it reflects on what we might need to do (and when we need to do it) it suggests who needs to take a lead, and how it must be done if we are do it in a way which is thoughtful and inclusive. It also suggests – based on the estimates in the July 2019 carbon budget – that an investment programme substantial enough to meet this challenge will be in the order of £40bn over 21 years (2020-2041).
The actions we propose are things that individuals, communities, businesses and government at all levels can lead. They include:
1. Active travel and cleaner transport, including keep your car at home schemes to reduce emissions, reduce unnecessary travel and encourage low carbon connectivity. We will also be working with the 5G Team to support infrastructure for digital connectivity to reduce the need to travel.
2. Infrastructure to support the transition to electric charging at in the region and to put our region at the forefront of change in one of its anchor sectors. This would be complemented by the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre and ongoing discussions about creating the UK’s first Gigafactory in the region.
3. Transition to more eco-friendly homes, proposing the development of a West Midlands ‘new green deal’ that learns from history and leverages devolution. Our proposed actions on this focus on both the financing of retrofit, as well the introduction Councillor Ian Courts Portfolio holder for Environment, Energy & HS2 2 of a zero carbon standard for new builds.
4. Creating breathable places, including big ambitions for tree planting programme with one tree for each resident, as well as building on Wildlife Ways and advancing plans to establish a West Midlands ‘national park’.
5. A number of behaviour change campaigns at scale, including on single-use plastics, energy use, waste and cycling, walking and active travel. The WMCA has already committed to eliminating single-use plastics from all activities by 2020, and we will work to see how other organisations and individuals across the region can make similar commitments.
6. Investment to support re-skilling and employment as a result of sector transitions – including further work to scope a climate re-skilling workstream over time. An example of this is encouraging FE colleges, universities and other training providers to incentivise transition into careers linked with climate adaptation and the natural environment.
7. Incentives for business, including ‘clean growth challenges’ which boost the R&D capacity and pace of technological innovation of the region in support of its Industrial Strategy.
8. Commitments we can make as ‘anchor institutions’ (within the public sector) to use our size, scale, procurement practice and employers’ policies. One area we are keen to explore is securing the means to help all places in the region to shift to LED street lighting.
9. Consideration of new fiscal mechanisms – such as workplace levies, carbon accounting and Green Bonds – to incentivise clean growth and make the devolution case to Government.
10. Pursuing energy devolution so that we can combine a shift to sustainable energy with a medium-term reduction in fuel poverty. We will work closely with Energy Capital around the need for devolution of resources and responsibilities to support this, for example securing devolution of Energy Company Obligation funding to the WMCA.
These are just some of the actions that will be needed to make a success of a society and system-wide change in the way we live, connect and work. But we are not starting from scratch: from our efforts to secure creating the UK’s first Gigafactory in the region, and our commitment to driving investment into charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, through to our community level Better Streets funds and pledge to eliminate single-use plastics (some of these existing commitments can be found in Appendix 1). Likewise, local authority and community partners have already taken many steps on the journey to a climate-resilient society.
Nonetheless, there is a huge amount to do, and we understand the scale of the change required. We know that this is a load that needs to be shared, from people in their communities, to public services and our business community. It is in partnership that we will come up with the solutions that will best serve our region. So please: think about the challenges, the proposals to address them, and join us in writing a story that future generations will live.