So you’ve declared a climate emergency. Now what?

The news surrounding climate change often changes by the day, but there are longer term trends within local and national government that you can spot if you look through at the activity being run on Delib’s tools (check out the Citizen Space Aggregator and the Simulator Aggregator). In 2019, 260-odd councils, as well as the Scottish Government and the UK Parliament, declared a climate emergency.

Now, we’re starting to see consultations about the actions organisations are taking to reduce carbon emissions and disrupt habitat and biodiversity loss. As time passes, these consultations are becoming more granular and specific, as organisations (and the public) learn more about what concrete actions can be taken now rather than ‘at some point’.

Here are a few examples.

London Borough of Haringey

Landing page of Haringey's Carbon Reduction Priority Simulator

Simulator is a fantastic tool for demonstrating the complexities and trade-offs involved in public bodies’ decision-making, and there’s arguably no decision more complex than mitigating climate change. Haringey are making the most of this, with a ‘Carbon Reduction’ Simulator.
Why it’s good: They’ve gone into loads of detail in the categories and consequences, meaning respondents really think about what they’re submitting whilst learning a lot about the specifics involved in reducing emissions the point of response.

Perth & Kinross Council

Landing page of Perth & Kinross Council's consultation, 'let's Work Together to Tackle and Adapt to Climate Change (Phase 3) Land Use'

Perth & Kinross have published a series of consultations called ‘Let’s Work Together to Tackle and Adapt to Climate Change’. Each consultation covers a different topic. This one talks about land use.
Why it’s good: the consultation separates the ‘land use’ topic into more specific sub-categories, such as Agriculture and Green Spaces. They’ve done this by splitting them into chapters. There’s a lot of area-specific information for each chapter that’s presented really nicely so the whole consultation is easy to follow.

SEPA

Landing page of SEPA's consultation, 'Protecting Scotland's groundwaters from pollution', displayed on a tablet

Another consultation from a series, SEPA is consulting on protecting Scottish groundwater from contamination and pollution in collaboration with the Scottish Government.
Why it’s good: The subject matter is complex but by splitting them into chapters and creating an ‘information chapter’ for each section, the respondent doesn’t need to read a technical document before responding. I also like that there is a ‘parent’ page which allows respondents to choose which of the three consultations in this series they’d like to respond to.


For more info and examples of how Delib is helping organisations tackle the climate crisis and reach net zero carbon, here’s a helpful resource. Or you can get in touch at any time.