The Edinburgh Climate Strategy

 Edinburgh has a vision to reach net zero by 2030. 

That’s the ambitious target of the Draft Edinburgh Climate Strategy which is out for consultation for the next month.

While it’s fantastic to see the city set such a bold target, they haven’t made it very easy to engage in the consultation. This makes me wonder how successful they will be in achieving the huge level of citizen engagement which will be required to deliver this huge transition.

For a start, the draft Strategy is a 76 page report, the Executive Summary of 21 pages, and the consultation is a questionnaire of around 35 questions — a tall order for the average citizen who has little time and/or little expertise in critiquing climate strategies.

What are Edinburgh’s carbon emissions now?

The most interesting information in my view is the ‘baseline’. This is the picture of what our current climate emissions are and what is causing them. This is essential to set a meaningful and strategic plan for reducing them to net zero. Unfortunately they’re not in the Executive Summary, but these charts show a few key headlines:

Edinburgh’s carbon emissions are 2.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. Almost 70% comes from ‘stationary energy’ — heating, lighting etc. A further quarter comes from transport. 

Edinburgh needs to double the rate of carbon reduction from industry and business, treble it from homes — and reduce transport emissions twelve times faster.

Electricity (in red) is increasingly from low-carbon sources like wind and solar. But the burning of gas for heating (blue) and petrol and diesel for transport (purple) urgently needs to come down.

What that these figures tell me is that there are two big challenges: buildings and transport. We need to insulate our homes, switch from gas to low carbon energy, and reduce car use drastically. 

Will the strategy deliver net zero? 

I haven’t had time to dissect all 76 pages of the strategy, but I’m concerned that it has not focused sufficiently on tackling these big problems. Too much emphasis seems to me to be placed on getting people to change, and not enough on assessing why people don’t change and making it easy for them. 

If people fail to respond to this consultation, is it because they don’t care about climate change? We know that’s not the case. Is it because the consultation is very difficult to respond to, and they lack the time, knowledge and infrastructure? Could this same problem repeat itself with calls to cycle more, insulate your home, or engage with the process through community councils or groups like churches?

I really, really want this strategy to deliver. I want to live in a net zero city by 2030. But I’m not sure how to help the Council do that. Back in 2010, St John’s Church decided to measure and reduce its carbon emissions as an institution and community, and discovered some of the challenges and pitfalls involved in doing that. Could we And other churches in Edinburgh find ways to help unblock the sticking points, and achieve the zero carbon city in which we all want to live?

What can the churches do? 

People wonder why churches prescribe prayer and worship in these situations, but throughout history the one has created the neural pathways and the other the collective pathways that create miracles. Have a look, see what you think, talk to people, attend the events or answer the questions if you can. And as churches let’s make it part of our prayer and worship too, and see if we can help to make some of those links to pull Edinburgh through this great transition.