Two Norfolk councils have scored zero when it comes to their plans to tackle global warming, climate campaigners have said - but the research was slammed as 'meaningless' by one senior councillor.
Scorecards produced by campaign group Climate Emergency UK ranked councils’ climate action plans based on what they described as an “expert-approved checklist”.
But politicians questioned the methodology used by the group, with a senior county councillor slamming the research as “meaningless” and others pointing out that it only took account of plans produced before or on September 20, 2021.
Norfolk County Council was one of only three county authorities to score 0pc - joined by Essex and Lancashire - because it was deemed not to have an action plan in place.
South Norfolk Council meanwhile received the highest marks in the county - but only by achieving a score of 41pc.
It was followed by Norwich City Council (33pc), Broadland District Council (28pc), King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council (26pc) Breckland Council (20pc), North Norfolk District Council (16pc), Great Yarmouth Borough Council (0pc) and Norfolk County Council (0pc).
The figures compare with an average score of 43pc for English district, borough and city councils and 40pc for county councils.
Andy Grant, cabinet member for environment and waste at the Conservative-run county council said: “Our focus is on positive action not just words, which makes this desktop research sadly meaningless as the people carrying out the study openly admit the scorecards ignore any action that councils already have underway.
“We are an active member of the Norfolk Climate Change Partnership, made up of the county and all the districts, and since we agreed the county council’s environmental policy in 2019 our actions have included the cutting of thousands of tonnes of CO2 emissions from our buildings and streetlighting, continuing major work on improving and promoting low carbon or active travel, planting of tens of thousands of trees in our One Million Trees for Norfolk project and we’ve created a pollinator action plan to boost highway biodiversity.
“In November 2021 we reaffirmed our commitment to push further and faster to meet our goals, and set out how we'll achieve them, including net zero carbon by 2030.”
Paul Kunes, cabinet member for the environment in Conservative-run West Norfolk borough, said: “This report has used old data, isn’t based on our current strategy and doesn’t include our action plan so they have missed vital information that shows action on climate change is actually a good news story in west Norfolk.”
He pointed to his council’s work on installing heat pumps, solar panels and electric vehicle charging points, planting trees, and their plan to be net zero 15 years earlier than originally planned.
Ian Sherwood, Conservative-controlled Breckland’s lead for Climate Change, said tackling global warming was one of the authority's top priorities, adding: “The organisation that carried out the assessment did not discuss with us the programme of work we have underway and consequently we don’t feel this report is an accurate reflection of the good progress we’ve made since adopting our Sustainability Strategy.
"We also have concerns that included in our score are areas which are outside the district council’s remit, such as decarbonising transport."
Emma Hampton, cabinet member for climate change in Labour-controlled Norwich, said: “We are extremely disappointed by this score, which we don’t believe is reflective of the importance we place on climate change.
“We have done great work in this area in recent years, including being one of the first councils to benchmark our carbon footprint in 2007, and reducing our operational emissions by over 70pc since then.”
She too said her council had seen “a huge amount of progress since the information for this report was collated”.
Nigel Lloyd, portfolio holder for climate change and environment at Liberal Democrat-run North Norfolk district, said his council “welcome the report… and the light that it shed on the current situation regarding action on the climate emergency.”
He also said his council had produced its own draft net-zero strategy and action plan since the report’s data had been collated however.
The analysis found that of the 409 local authorities across the UK, 84 still did not have climate action plans, while 139 had not committed to reach net zero emissions by a specific date.
Isaac Beevor of Climate Emergency UK said: “Councils may be doing good things which aren’t reflected in their Action Plan. That is why next year we will be assessing all councils on what they are actually doing.
“Local authorities can help to deliver 30pc of the cuts in carbon emissions needed to get to net zero, according to the 6th UK Carbon Budget published a year ago, so it is vital that councils do as much as they can.
“This year’s scorecards are just the start of the process. It has been an important exercise to understand what makes a good council Climate Action Plan and we hope that it will help councils learn from each other and up their game.”
Broadland, Great Yarmouth, and South Norfolk councils were also approached for comment.
How much is Norfolk to blame for the UK’s carbon emissions?
According to a report produced by Broadland District Council, Norfolk produced some 5,139,200 tons of carbon in 2017 - a reduction of 19.1pc from 6,350,800 tons emitted in 2012.
Emissions across the UK were meanwhile estimated to be 361,105,375 tons in 2017, meaning that Norfolk accounted for about 1.4pc of carbon produced by the country.
This would be roughly proportionate to Norfolk’s population within the context of the UK.
According to data released in 2018, those parts of the county with the worst emissions include affluent neighbourhoods such as Easton, Plumstead, Brooke, Cromwells and North and South Wootton, but also remoter areas in Lothingland, Tasburgh, Great Witchingham and Mattishall.
Why did Somerset score so highly?
The highest scoring council on the list was Somerset West and Taunton (92pc), which was also the only council to achieve more than 90pc.
The district authority, which is set to assume greater powers in 2023 when it becomes a unitary council, has declared its area a fracking-free zone, pledged to manage council services, buildings and land in a biodiversity-friendly way and is working to ensure that addressing global warming is a strategic priority in its house-planning policies.
The Liberal Democrat-run council is also building zero-carbon council houses and retrofitting existing housing stock.
Its entire pool car fleet will be electric by the end of 2022, and the council plans to make the district net zero by 2030.
Conservative-run Somerset County Council - which has allocated a £1.5m climate emergency fund for community projects to help the county weather climate change - was meanwhile the highest scoring county authority, with a score of 63pc.
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