[164] Your council and climate action – with Annie Pickering

A Sustainable Life with Jen Gale

Most of us limit our interactions with our local authority to whingeing about our bin collections and paying our council tax BUT did you know that they have a whole lot of carbon emissions within their influence and therefore a whole lot of potential for a positive planetary impact?
But how do we know what our council are doing? And if their plans are any good? And how they compare to the county next door, or at the other end of the country?
This is where today’s guest comes in!
I’m chatting to Annie Pickering from Climate Emergency UK, a not for profit who are supporting local authorities to achieve faster emissions reductions. Last year they assessed the climate action plans of all the local authroties in the UK and ranked them in a set of council climate plan scorecards – I use these regularly in my Carbon Literacy training and also in my talks when I’m talking about spheres of influence and the role we can play as citizens – these scorecards are a great ‘hook’ to get in touch with your local authority and start a conversation about climate action.
This year they’re going a step further and are assessing and ranking local authorities on their actual climate actions, rather than their plans, and this is where we come in!
Not only can we use these tools (the current one now and the new one when it’s available in Autumn of 2023) to engage with our councils around climate action, but if anyone has been looking for climate volunteering opportunities that they can do from the comfort of their homes, then this could be the one for you!
Climate Emergency UK are looking to recruit a small army of volunteers to help them to assess the CA plans of all the local authorities in the UK – a somewhat mammoth undertaking! They’ll provide full training for you and it looks like a brilliant opportunity to get involved in something that really is having a meaningful impact – you’ll hear in our chat about some of the impact that the plan scorecards have already had, so it’s exciting to think about what the action scorecards will achieve!
I’ve already signed up – if you’re interested, here's the link.
Enjoy!
PS. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast this year, please do give me a Christmas pressie of a rating and review whether you get your podcasts – it really does help the podcast to grown and reach more people!

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LISTEN...

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CHECK OUT...

• Climate Emergency UK
  - Website
  - Facebook
  -Instagram
  - Twitter
• Council Climate Scorecards
  - New methodology for assessing actions
  - Register your interest in volunteering to help assess council's actions
  
• Talking Climate - The Sustainable(ish) accredited Carbon Literacy course
• The Sustainable(ish) Facebook group
• The Sustainable(ish) Clubhouse

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