How local councils are leading on net zero in spite of central government

Welcome to The Developer Podcast, where we talk about how to make cities worth living in, which often has to do with the spaces between the buildings as much as the buildings themselves. I'm Christine Murray, founding editor in chief of The Developer and director of The Festival of Place. Our ambition is to break down silos and bring people together to unpick what makes places that thrive. Many local councils declared a climate emergency back in 2019. And despite the interruption of a global pandemic, local authorities have not been sitting still since then. Many have developed net zero action plans, decarbonization programs, and assembled climate teams. But a recent report by The Key Cities, a group of 27 UK cities, highlights some of the challenges faced by local authorities, not least a lack of clarity, direction, and funding from central government. Gina Dowding, Lancaster County Councilor, and Richard Cook, leader of Gloucester City Council, join me to discuss the recommendations from the report, levelling up, emissions down. Hi, Christine. I'm Richard Cook. I'm leader of Gloucester City Council. In that Gloucester City is one of, 27 cities in the, Key Cities network, and I'm deputy chair of Key Cities with the, climate emergency as its, as my portfolio. In that role, I also represent Key Cities on the, three c I Group, which is the, city's commission for climate investment, which is a public private partnership designed to take, private money into the public sector to enable climate projects to proceed. And, Gina, you're here with us too. Will you tell us a little bit about you and your role? Yeah. Good afternoon. So, my name is Gina Dowding. I'm a city councilor on Lancaster City Council. We're also one of the key cities part of the network, and, I'm portfolio holder for climate action. The key cities, which you're both a part of, have revealed this report, leveling up emissions down, which sums up some of the challenges that the cities are facing in terms of tackling net zero. I think, amongst some of the comments, one of the parts that stood out for me was this, question of rules and strategy. So can we talk a little bit about, these recommendations? There's kind of seems to be a lack of clarity that perhaps people don't understand on whose job it is to to initiate these climate reduction programs. Well, one of one of the key messages that came from the leveling up emissions down report was that, progress is being hindered by central government through a lack of powers, clarity, capacity, and funding. Most of the cities within the Key Cities network do not have specified funding for dealing with climate projects. It's out of our, non it's not a nonstatutory thing that we do. So it's out of what's left over that we can actually make progress, and that's why progress is slow. The other reason is when it comes to bidding for funding from …