Climate change poses the biggest single threat to the world’s economy in coming decades. We have created an economy that harms itself. Is that progress?

We’ve known about the catastrophic implications of climate change since the 1980s. We’ve known since the early 1990s that we must cut world CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050 (from 1990 levels). For the high-polluting UK, that means about 90% cuts. Yet by 2004, CO2 emissions are at the same level as in 1990. Is that progress?

The UK has almost 500 primary local authorities. They dispose of an annual budget of £78 billion a year [1] and they could do a great deal both to help cut energy use and to stimulate renewable energy production within their areas.

But how much progress have those councils made?

How many have a strategy to help cut CO2 emissions in their area by 90% by 2050? How many have solar roof programmes as advanced as Germany’s? Or even plans to put solar roofs on all council houses? How many plan to generate windpower the way Denmark does? How many have helped make a single school, library, fire station, police station or hospital even halfway self-sufficient in energy? How many of them actively promote the latest micro-turbine windpower technology? How many have changed planning regulations to make sure all big developments generate at least some of their own energy from solar or windpower? How many have conducted a review to establish the potential for onshore (and, in coastal authorities, offshore) windpower production? How many have even used public money to fund low-energy lightbulbs for all households, to cut energy use? How many make renewable energy a major factor in their job-creation or economic regeneration strategies?

The answer to all the above questions is fewer than 1%. And in 2004, that’s not progress.

The Green Party sets the standard for Real Progress in local authority energy policy as in other fields. We want every council in the country to have a Smart Energy Conservation Strategy. In the era of climate change, poor performance is unacceptable. Given the social, economic and environmental benefits of Smart Energy policy, failure to make real progress is inexcusable.

This document sets out the challenge: only the councils that commit to a Smart Energy strategy are making Real Progress.

All Green councillors will commit themselves to Smart Energy. If other parties’ candidates won’t develop a Smart Energy Conservation Strategy, they are behind the times, and not up to the job of running a local authority.

1.1 A Smart Energy council will:

1. Immediately develop a strategy for cutting the council’s own CO2 emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2020 and 90% by 2050.
2. Immediately develop a strategy by which the area under the council’s jurisdiction can play a full part in helping the UK to reduce its CO2 emissions by 90% by 2050.
3. Modify the unitary development plan (or equivalent) to require all developments to meet demanding energy efficiency requirements compatible with the Smart Energy Conservation Strategy.
4. Negotiate with other public bodies in its area – the police, the fire and ambulance services, the health authority – to help them develop their own strategies in parallel with this.
5. Develop a strategy for spending given percentages of the council’s energy budget on energy conservation and renewable energy production, appropriate to supporting the Smart Energy Conservation Strategy.
6. Employ energy efficiency managers in numbers appropriate to supporting the Smart Energy Conservation Strategy. To begin with, we suggest three Green energy officers per million pounds of expenditure on energy.
7. Commission research that will help private householders and businesses to recognise the benefits of investing in their own Smart Energy measures.
8. Use the local authority funding input to ask Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) to set tighter energy performance standards on new housing than would otherwise be achieved. Campaign for better energy efficiency to be required of private rented accommodation.
9. Press central government to adopt the "contraction and convergence" model pioneered by the Global Commons Institute, promoted by the Green Party and now recommended by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and many other bodies, including a UK target of 90% CO2 emissions by 2050.
10. Campaign for central government to introduce a Home Energy Conservation Act calculated to reduce domestic energy demand by 30% within 10 years.

2.1 A Smart Energy council will:

1. Install advanced lighting systems with electronic control gear, T5 tubes and efficient luminaires that can run with 25–30% the power of "normal" systems installed in the 1980s – saving up to £15,000 (100,000–150,000 tonnes of CO2) a year in a medium-sized office block.
2. Install automatic lighting controls so that rooms are not lit when unoccupied or when good daylight is available.
3. Install improved heating controls and condensing boilers.
4. Install combined-heat-and-power (CHP) plant on suitable sites, including the use of solar thermal and heat pump technology.

3.1 A Smart Energy council will:

1. Procure its new buildings to higher energy efficiency standards. Use central government’s Design Advice scheme on all new buildings and refurbishments.
2. Improve its existing building stock to "best practice" within a decade, including local authority housing.
3. Impose similar energy efficiency requirements on any development land which it sells.
4. Provide more support and encouragement in its own planning policy for energy-efficiency in self-build projects.
5. Use the planning system to press developers of new housing estates and public buildings to install the most energy-efficient heating systems, eg community heating systems which can be connected to combined heat and power plants.
6. Plan to maximise the local potential for combined heat and power schemes covering existing buildings and local industry.

4.1 A Smart Energy council will:

1. Procure only the most fuel-efficient vehicles available for their fleets.
2. Ensure that its own travel expenses system does not favour "gas-guzzlers".
3. Work with taxi firms and taxi drivers’ representatives to develop a strategy for deploying fuel-efficient taxis according to agreed targets.
4. Ensure its fleet management strategy incorporates beneficial use of improved fuels, such as biofuels and other alternatives in development.
5. Encourage the use of modern communications technology to assist some employees to work from home more easily, where appropriate.

5.1 A Smart Energy council will:

1. Save up to 90% electricity per computer by replacing desktop computers with laptop computers where possible.
2. Where desktop computers are used, introduce commercially-available software packages which save energy by shutting down systems when possible.
3. Introduce demanding standards for energy efficiency in all electrical equipment.
4. Maintain a directory of energy-efficient consumer durables and publicise this, to encourage consumers to maximise energy conservation potential when buying new electrical goods.

6.1 A Smart Energy council will:

1. Immediately develop a strategy to ensure maximum uptake of grants available from central government. [2]
2. Lead a local campaign to press central government for the grant scheme to be extended strategically, including extension to other appropriate forms of renewable energy production such as micro-turbines, in a manner commensurate with the need to achieve 90% cuts in UK CO2 emissions by 2050.
3. Immediately develop a strategy for fitting solar panels (both thermal and photovoltaic) to all council house roofs by a challenging target date, recouping the costs by increases in rents which offset the energy savings to residents.
4. Immediately develop a strategy for fitting micro-turbines to all suitable council house roofs by a challenging target date, recouping the costs by increases in rents which offset the energy savings to residents.
5. Review the potential for wind energy generated using turbines mounted on public buildings, and develop a strategy for maximising this potential according to challenging targets.
6. Use the Renovation Grant system (part of the Revenue Support Grant) to assist less affluent households to fit solar panels and/or micro-turbines. Develop challenging targets for this.
7. Promote renewable energy production by agreeing long-term supply contracts with renewable energy projects.
8. Review the potential for onshore (and where appropriate offshore) windpower generation within the council’s area, and amend the unitary development plan to stipulate areas where windpower schemes can be sited.
9. Review the potential for water power production within the council’s area, including coastal (where appropriate), riverine and micro-systems.
10. Through the planning process, encourage developers to offer significant proportions of the shares in renewable energy schemes to local investors, thus encouraging "community" ownership of renewable energy schemes.
11. Modify the unitary development plan to require all developments to generate agreed percentages of their energy, compatible with the Smart Energy Conservation Strategy, from on-site renewable energy technology.

7.1 A recent government report showed that four million Britain’s are at risk of flooding in the era of climate change. Another report, from government scientists, argued that climate-related damage could amount to £21 billion a year by 2080. And a leaked report from the US Department of Defense presented as a worst-case scenario world of more frequent and more severe extreme weather events, droughts, floods, famines, refugee crises, widespread civil unrest and war attributable to climate change.

7.2 With climate change now the greatest threat to both our economy and world peace and stability, we cannot afford not to tackle it. Adopting Energy Smart policies would reduce the cost of sustainable energy, improve energy security and lessen the risk of geopolitical events affecting energy supply, as well as reducing carbon emissions.

7.3 Local authorities can play a major role. The Green Party urges everyone to use their vote this year to elect more Greens – councillors who will have the expertise, the understanding and the political will to take the lead in making their council and their town Energy Smart.

7.4 Vote Green for Real Progress!

9.1 For more information see: