What is a climate and nature emergency and why do we need one?

Climate Stripes

The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Climate Change which is summarised here or in wikipedia, states that we have already caused a 1°C rise in global temperature. The difference between the impacts of global warming of 2°C and 1.5°C is much greater than previously thought and we are currently heading for a catastrophic 3°C rise. We are running out of time, and need to get to Zero Carbon emissions by 2030.

Growing numbers of parish, town and county councils are declaring a Climate Emergency. This is a genuine commitment to work towards a specific measurable target. It might seem that a Parish Council can’t really do much, but Climate change is relevant to many of our activities…

  • Creating green space in the village
  • Working to improve public transport
  • Providing feedback on wider council strategies for transport, housing as well as specific feedback on planning applications.
  • This proposal provides justification to treat climate change as a factor in future decision making.
  • All levels of government national, regional and local, have a duty to secure our community from the negative impacts of climate breakdown. Local government should not wait for national government to change their policies.

Ide Parish Council (PC) declared a climate emergency on 20th March 2019.

Latest news

Teignbridge District Council have successfully been awarded £2.3 million of 100% grant funding under the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, covering a suite of decarbonisation projects at Newton Abbot Leisure Centre, Teignmouth Lido and Broadmeadow Sports Centre. Projects common across the three sites include the installation of solar PV, battery storage, building management system upgrades and  energy metering. Gas boilers at NALC and the Lido will be replaced with low-carbon air source heat pumps, and pool circulation pumps will be replaced with high-efficiency equivalents. At Broadmeadow, modern LED lighting will replace inefficient fluorescent systems. They are anticipating a carbon reduction of 280 tonnes CO2 in year one of operation, which is equivalent to the carbon emissions of roughly 100 homes.

On 27 January 2021 Ide PC held an Extraordinary meeting to discuss feedback to the Devon County Council Draft Carbon Plan, and to discuss the Draft Ide Carbon Plan. The PC Agreed to feedback on the DCC Proposals, including to support a 2030 target date, and to accept the draft ide carbon Plan as an aspirational target. Ide PC have provided feedback the DCC consultation, including supporting 2030 as a target date and adopted the Ide Carbon Plan v4 to be reviewed in 3-6 months.

Action for Climate in Teignbridge have produced a carbon footprint tracker that we can all use to measure our impact and see the best ways to reduce it.

The climate group is meeting regularly, and progressing various projects. We want to develop lobbying and members have contributed to government consultations on Planning changes, and proposed changes to the Highway code to support active travel.

We have produced a recycling guide reduce, reuse, recycle guide, and will maintain that with accurate and up to date information on reducing your impact, from recycling candles, and VHS videos, to buying local in the village shop.

We are looking at ways to re-wild patches of land in the village, and are working up proposals to improve diversity in the churchyard, along the lines recommended by “God’s acre”. We hope to build a group of volunteers interested in outdoor conservation work who could help with this, and would be available to the Orchard and Weir meadow projects.

Restrictions have meant that we can’t run public or group events, but we have survey forms from people who attended the public event in Feb at the village hall.

Action for climate in Teignbridge is producing many resources to help small groups such as ours, we will be checking out their carbon foot-printing resources.

The Climate event on 12 Feb was a great success. Thank you to everyone who came and thank you for all your completed questionnaires.
So, for those who missed the public meeting, we listened to three inspiring speakers: Kate Willett from the Met Office managed to make her talk on climate change informative, disturbing and hopeful all at the same time and all in fifteen minutes. Then Richard Cottle and Andy Bragg talked about what we can do to help, from national and local perspectives.

We want to turn ideas into action at our next event, which is on hold due to Coronavirus concerns. More details coming soon – but we’re planning to have stalls and workshops to help get some meaningful action started. We’ll have a stall on local transport plus many more. Please save the date and please invite your friends, families and neighbours! More details in the April Ide Times.

The Climate Emergency working group are keen to support and promote all relevant activities in the area. At our local community shop they are committed to try and be more eco-friendly. To that end, in conjunction with the village hall they have installed a drinking water tap outside the shop. Please do feel free to top up your reusable drinking bottle. Soon they will be on the “Refill app” an online phone app  dedicated to promoting reusable bottles and free water to the public and reducing the use of single use plastic.

At the Parish Council meeting on Wednesday 15th January the PC considered a motion to support “Plastic Free Ide” Support and engagement from local government is one of the 5 criteria for the plastic free communities award. This was agreed and the Plastic free ide project has taken another stop forward.

At a recent Ide Parish Council meeting it was agreed that Ide PC would sign the Devon Climate Declaration, This is much in line with what we are doing already in the village, but we want to be working together with county, district and other parish groups as much as possible. There is a full link to the declaration here https://www.devonclimateemergency.org.uk/devon-climate-declaration/

We are looking for Climate Champions (or Climate Guinea Pigs). People who would be prepared to take an hour or so with one of our volunteers, to measure your household carbon footprint. Then look at ways to make changes and measure it again in a year. We will want to write about what we learn from it, but this can be anonymous. If you would be prepared to do that please get in touch. climate@stygian.org.uk

We are Working with the School to get solar panels. This will reduce the carbon footprint of the parish, reduce our schools electricity bills and is a learning opportunity.

Climate posters at west town farm

Climate posters at west town farm

Renewable Heating Initiative

Did you know you could qualify for a Government backed scheme to replace your fossil fuel heating system? The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) supports various renewable technologies including Air and Ground Source Heat Pumps, Solar Thermal Panels. The scheme supports the home owner for a 7 year period and aims to pay for the renewable equipment and installation.

  • Domestic RHI calculated from your Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)
  • Must be fitted by an MCS certified installer
  • Reduces CO2 emissions and running costs compared with fossil fuel systems
  • Provides all your heating and hot water requirements
  • Can be retrofitted to older properties but may require up sizing radiators

Further details can be found on the Ofgem website:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/environmental-programmes/domestic-rhi

“Very excited on delivery of our new 9kW Air to Water Air Source Heat Pump. Ideally suited for properties with oil/ wood/ Lpg to convert and will reduce your energy bill and CO2 emissions. Provides all your heating and hot water. The government backed scheme pays for the installation over a 7 year period. Refer to Ofgem Website for details on the scheme ”

A Heat Pump

What simple things can we do right now to get started

  • Contact our MP and ask what they will do to combat climate change.
  • Use low energy lightbulbs (also saves money). These are now cheap and perform well.
  • Use a reusable water bottle, don’t buy water in plastic bottles.(also saves money). Use the Refill App to find where to fill up!
  • Get milk delivered in returnable glass bottles. available from West Town Farm, or a milk man.
  • Switch to a renewable energy supplier (also saves money).
  • Reduce car use – Walk cycle or take the bus share rides, or combine journeys.
  • Get an electric bike, and/or cycle more.
  • Join the Action for Climate in Teignbridge facebook group

What is Ide doing about the climate and nature emergency

Measuring

We have been looking at the committee for climate change report UK Net zero by 2030 and the Centre for Alternative Technology report with a similar target, setting out routes to carbon neutrality.

Ide Shop solar panels

solar panels on village hall

(thanks Ian Campbell for this section of text and the picture.)

After what seemed like a bit of a marathon dealing with the planners, obtaining a Carbon trust grant, checking the hall roof structure, getting a Charities report and arranging a lease between the Hall and the Shop the new solar panels went live on 8th May. There followed a week of lovely spring sunshine and the first week of operation generated 230 Kwh; that’s quite a lot of electricity that the shop did not have to buy.

It is a rather unusual arrangement in which the panels have been fitted to the rear south facing hall roof for the benefit of the shop who have paid for the installation. The hall will be getting some rent for their roof. The shop has been paying nearly £4,000 per year for electricity because of the demands of its freezers, chillers and air-conditioning. Projected cash savings look promising but we now wait to find out just how they are going to perform. Hopefully it will make good business sense and, importantly, make a contribution to reducing carbon emissions.

Electric car charging points

If we could get electric charging points in the village this could make it feasible for residents to switch to electric vehicles even if they don’t have access for electric cables between their house and their car. Switching to an electric vehicle means you reclaim energy when you slow down, and the energy you use (from the mains) is partly generated from renewable sources. As the country produces more renewable energy, and uses less fossil fuels – the renewable proportion of the energy used in electric cars will increase. Would you be interested in using charging points? Please let us know.

Plastic free Ide:

This is a Surfers Against Sewage initiative. https://www.sas.org.uk/plastic-free-communities/  to obtain “plastic free community” status we must meet these 5 objectives…

  • Local Governance. Local council passes a resolution supporting the journey to Plastic Free Community status.
  • Local Businesses. Work with businesses in your community to help them reduce single-use plastics.
  • Plastic free Allies. Inspire the wider community to spread the plastic-free message.
  • Plastic free events. Mobilise your community. Hold a clean-up, mass unwrap or other events to raise awareness.
  • Plastic free steering group. Form a group of local stakeholders and meet at least twice a year to take your community campaign forward.

We would like Ide to work towards plastic free status and we need a volunteer to become our plastic free community leader, and help us work through these stages. Could you help? Please let us know.

SAS also provide a framework for becoming a plastic free school.

Litter Picking

litter picking

As part of the Plastic free Ide initiative, there is a litter pick on the second Sunday of the month, starting at the Village hall at 10 am.

We recycle what we can and also reduce plastic going into the water course and eventually the oceans! We would welcome anyone who wants to come along to get in contact, or just turn up on the day

Please contact Cas Tysoe

Ide School

Ide School ran activities in parallel with the school strikes. There are lots of details in the June Ide Times.

Funding opportunities

Energy Communities http://teignenergycommunities.co.uk can fund large small projects and help with large ones. Their 2019 community fund is now open to all applications in Teignbridge. In the past they have funded low energy lighting in Teign school and Tedburn village Hall.

Ide Parish council has a community fund that can help with projects.

Teignbridge district council are taking their climate emergency declaration seriously and will be making funds available for qualfying projects.

Do you know of any other funding sources? Or could you help with applications Please let us know.

What else could we do? and could you help us do it?

We have lots of ideas for other things we could do. Have you got more ideas? could you help us develop any of these ideas? Please let us know.

  • Advice for residents and consumers.
  • Bike services – some work places provide this service. We could do it in the village. Would you be interested?
  • Come and hear a speaker on Wildflower meadows?
  • Tetra Cycle recycles crisp packets in some workplaces
  • Lobbying national government eg about energy and transport
  • Get more young people involved, or any other type of people
  • Library of things – things we can share rather than all buying one each.
  • Training on influencing MPs and policy makers. Key points keep pestering, Use Clinics. Find out Mel Strides surgeries.
  • Permaculture and habitat in the village acts as a carbon sink
  • Flood risk in the fields behind Pynes farm which all drain into a conduit under the old railway. Also drainage by the shop trash screen.
  • Identify council owned land that could be improved as a carbon sink
  • Work with the community shop. they already use local suppliers, getting solar panels.
  • Work with the primary school.
  • Work with West Exe School
  • Measure the carbon footprint of the village. There is useful information on Ashton Hayes web site.
  • Contact other councils and cooperate.
  • Prizes, incentives.
  • Look at effects of climate change on the local area eg flooding wildlife.
  • Set up an electric community car – hire by the hour, like the ones in topshap and exeter.
  • Education events (eg at West Town farm. training session about the carbon cycle.)
  • Brand logo for the climate emergency project – signs outside the village.
  • ECOE by transition Exeter. renewable energy investment.
  • Renewable investment shared savings scheme. Gets installations sooner, by pooling saving and drawing lots for first service.
  • Promote renewable energy suppliers.
  • Start a Refill station

Other contacts, possible partners and useful information

A list of councils declaring climate emergencies : https://climateemergency.uk/

Devon Community Action Group €“ DCC funded provides support and advice
Resource CIT €“ Web site for logging volunteer activity eg litter picks,
Transition Exeter
Extinction Rebellion
Teignbridge Climate Emergency
Devon Climate emergency

This section needs more detail about who these organisations are and what they do. Can you help? Please let us know.

Documents

Ide’s original Climate emergency Proposal

Ide PC 20 march 2019 – Paper 4: Ide PC Climate change resolution

Terms of Reference for the Climate Emergency Working Group (CEWG)

ToR-Climate Emergency Working Group. As adopted

Agendas and minutes of meetings. (most recent at top)

4 May 2021 Minutes

3 March 2021 Minutes

3 Feb 2021 Minutes

5 January 2021 Minutes

1 December 2020 Minutes

3 November 2020 Minutes

6 October 2020 Minutes

2 Sept 2020 Minutes

4 Mar 2020 Minutes

5 Feb Minutes

8 Jan 2020 Agenda and Minutes

4 Dec Agenda and Minutes

6 November Agenda and Minutes

2 October Minutes

3 September Agenda and Minutes

24 July 2019 Minutes

2 June 2019 Minutes