Climate Change Hub

ADEPT recognises that the climate crisis must be at the heart of our work.

With more than half of the UK’s councils declaring a Climate Emergency (or equivalent), local authorities recognise they hold a pivotal role in meeting the net zero carbon emissions target by 2050.

Critical to this is delivering solutions at scale and pace. There are many innovative solutions to the issues we face – anyone can plant one tree, but how do you plant one million trees over ten years? How do you replace gas central heating in five thousand homes in a year? What does this mean for the supply chain and workforce skills?

The UK will host COP26 later this year and this gives an opportunity to lead, to accelerate climate change targets and influence other nations.

ADEPT has a key role to play in bringing local authorities and others together, to share knowledge and learning on the most effective actions to tackle emissions and overcome barriers. Local authorities have three main influences: to lead in our own operations; to enable a low carbon region with our programmes, policies and decisions; and to inspire business and residents to take climate action themselves.

We have created the ADEPT Climate Change Advisory Panel, bringing together people from the Environment Agency, Friends of the Earth (FoE), London Environment Directors Network, the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change and the Rapid Transition Network. All are part of existing best practice networks, giving the Panel expertise and experience, a firm basis for evaluating case studies and a huge reach for knowledge sharing.

We are also forging ahead with other climate change activity. In June 2019, we launched Preparing for a Changing Climate: Good Practice Guidance for Local Government, a practical guide designed to assist local government with preparing for the impacts of change adaptation. We published a policy position on climate change at the same time. We are developing a signposting toolkit for members and publishing various blogs and case studies. We are hosting regional climate change workshops that bring local authorities together to share good practice. We are working with other local government and civil society organisations to develop shared policy asks of government.

ADEPT’s Climate Change Hub brings together our work and resources on climate change and sets out our key areas of focus.