Clean Growth Strategy (CGS): Published
12 October 2017
All planners
would know that the Foreword to the NPPF states that ‘The purpose of planning is to help achieve
sustainable development….Sustainable means ensuring that better lives for
ourselves don’t mean worse lives for future generations’. Greg Clark who wrote
that is now Business Secretary responsible for the Clean Growth Strategy. Readers of this blog will also be familiar
with Planning
to reduce carbon emissions 2 that suggests that planning for the use of land and building could reduce
emissions by 50%. It is very disappointing
that the CGS barely mentions land use planning.
By
painting an overly positive picture (the successes amount to low hanging fruit
- closing of coal burning power stations and exporting manufacturing
emissions.), the CGS underestimates the scale of the challenges being faced, in
particular the de-coupling of GDP and carbon emissions.
The
CGS is not pretending that emissions
from aviation will reduce (ie no questioning of the building of more runways)
but seeks to rely on ‘flexibilities’ which are actually carbon offsets which it might be necessary to reserve for more
essential services than aviation, which is largely a luxury.
Global
temperatures are already 1degree above the agreed datum and the agreed target
is now 1.5degree that is half the increase of 3 degrees which is predicted to result from the current budgets. Worse, the investments already
made in energy infrastructure would use up the world carbon allowance by 2050. In order to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets
(covering the periods 2023-2027 and
2028-2032) the CGS accepts that there will need to be a significant
acceleration in the pace of
decarbonisation. The Committee on Climate Change gets a mention but the
requirement for it to take cost effectiveness into account in making its
recommendations is left out. This is a major constraint on its ‘objectivity’
and reliability in advising Government.
It can only be for ideological reasons that the CGS
relies on market signals and subsidies (grants) as the main agents for
change. There are areas where regulations
(eg planning controls and lower speed
limits) should be considered as more likely to trigger the systemic changes
that are needed.
It is interesting to see agriculture (UNCTAD estimate
responsibility for up to 50% of global emissions) occupying a prominent part in
the CGS. “To support greater
productivity of agricultural land, …use precision farming technologies on
smaller scale farms, … and investigate methods to improve soil health and
carbon stocks...Emissions from land use and agriculture falling by 26 per
cent on today’s levels. This could mean that woodland cover (over 11 million
trees) increases by up to 16 per cent and the emissions intensity of
agricultural outputs could improve by 27 per cent.” The Government should be
looking to the land use planning system to deliver these reductions but in more
holistic and socially beneficial ways; forest
gardening would offer some of the answers.
For
housing the proposals are very disappointing, relying on building regulations
and not planning. The report at http://www.rics.org/Global/Whole_life_carbon_assessment_for_the_BE_%20PG_guidance_2017.pdf
deserves a blog to itself but shows how the RICS is ahead of the RTPI in
addressing climate change in its area of influence. The RICS is also doing further work on setting
benchmarks for the carbon targets to be met by development through planning requirements. BEIS may be regretting the damage done by the last
Government and the Housing Standards Review and might be working its (and
DCLG’s ) way back into carbon saving mode.
This is where the RTPI and planning lobby (such that it is) should be helping.
Under-occupation
is not recognized as a problem, ‘consequential improvements’ are specifically rejected and
cusping has not appeared on the radar. Reliance is being placed on innovative construction
methods including factory production and off-site manufacturing. It is unclear whether the CGS is up to date on the
promise of biogas and syngas and replacing
gas boilers would be unnecessary if only consuming ‘green gas’ (and not fracked
and fossil gas).
On transport (seen to be responsible
for 24% of emissions) there is a wait for more efficient vehicles
and driving behaviour without any recommendations as to the regulations that
would help (ie lower national speed limits). As David MacKay said in ‘Sustainable
energy without the hot air’, a reduced speed limit would reduce carbon
emissions at the twiddle of a knob (ie it could be immediate, equitable, and at no pubic expense).
These are just a of the few points that could picked up from the CGS by those interested in helping the Government create a regulatory framework that would have a reasonable chance of reducing carbon emissions in line with domestic and internationally agreed targets.
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