This event was a participative expert symposium organised by Carbon Neutral Cambridge, in partnership with the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service of South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council, supported by Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and local businesses.
Participants included council officers, councillors, academia and a few expert attendees from relevant local businesses and community groups. To allow participants to share experiences freely, the event was by invitation only and the symposium discussions were held under Chatham House Rules.
The event was described by participants as “inspiring” and “well organised” with “amazing speakers“.
The full event report summarising the key recommendations arising from the symposium can be downloaded here: Zero Carbon Futures
Objectives:
- To help inform policy development for the new joint Greater Cambridge Local Plan.
- To help councils become confident and well informed in using their leadership, local planning powers and partnerships to accelerate the transition to Net Zero Carbon.
Key questions:
- What should a Zero Carbon target mean in practice to Councils?
- What powers (both soft power and statutory) are available to Councils to help achieve this?
- What examples are available to support the use of these powers?
Programme:
- Owen Bellamy, The Committee on Climate Change: Net zero: the UK’s contribution to stopping global warming (PDF)
- Emma Davies, Shared Planning Service: The Greater Cambridge context (PDF)
- Richard Twinn, UK Green Building Council: Net zero carbon buildings (PDF)
- Gwyn Jones, Norwich City Council: Norwich’s experience of Passivhaus development (PDF)
- Andy Gouldson, Leeds Climate Commission: Enabling city-wide climate action (PDF)
- Dave Lomax, Waugh Thistleton: Partnerships for carbon negative buildings (PDF)
- Miles Messenger, Bouygues UK: Local Authorities to lead the transition to net zero carbon (PDF)
- Hugh Ellis, TCPA: Planning for the climate challenge (PDF)
Other resources recommended by our speakers
- Net Zero Carbon Buildings Framework, from UKGBC
- Planning Policy Playbook, from UKGBC
- Rising to the climate crisis: a guide for local authorities, from the TCPA
Report
The full event report summarising the key recommendations arising from the symposium can be downloaded here: Zero Carbon Futures
We also shared the brief summary of findings and recommendations at a public meeting at our AGM in Cambridge on 2 July 2019. The presentation is here