[g8-sheffield] Related article in Guardian Today...

[dan at aktivix.org]

Hi,

Have you seen this?

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1559070,00.html

All planned out

If public services took green issues seriously they could make a huge difference
to the environment. But progress is patchy and painfully slow, finds John
Vidal
Wednesday August 31, 2005

Guardian
Five years ago, 62 pioneering local authorities signed what was called the
Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change, committing themselves to reducing
energy and addressing what the prime minister called "the greatest threat
facing humanity". But within three years the scheme had stalled, and had to be
relaunched by a disappointed Michael Meacher, then the environment minister.

"How can we expect the public to take action if we are not committed to doing so
ourselves?" he pleaded with local authorities. "The government cannot do it
all. Ultimately it is up to everyone to build appropriate protection into their
own plans and decisions."

Since 2003, official and public awareness of climate change has rocketed and
tens of thousands of local authorities around the world have pledged to try to
meet or exceed national targets on climate change. In Britain, however, only
about 30 more local authorities have taken the Nottingham pledge. Others have
come up with their own plans to conserve energy, but only about 200 of almost
500 councils even have a specialist energy officer - a prerequisite, says the
Energy Saving Trust, to any action being taken at a local government level.

It would be unfair, however, to suggest that local government in Britain is
blind to the future and reluctant to grapple with the environmental problems of
the age. Some authorities, such as Woking or Merton, are racing away on climate
change, developing ambitious, even visionary, technological and social
initiatives that are being picked up around Britain and the world.
Nevertheless, many others seem quite unconvinced there is a problem and are
ignorant about what they can do - or reluctant even to lift a finger.

It is not just climate change. When central government came up with its
ambitious integrated transport policy in 1999, it depended heavily on local
authorities to implement it and to reduce traffic levels and emissions. The
policy is widely seen now as an environmental disaster.

Given few resources, the policy met considerable confusion and ill-will among
authorities. According to the Commission for Integrated Transport, which
surveyed their progress in 2002, three kinds of authority were emerging: the
"champions", "the tacticians" and - the majority - "the sceptics". The
complaints were that central government was giving them mixed messages, there
was a plethora of confusing targets and indicators, and not enough money or
resources to do the job.

But then compare waste, the third great plank that defines the public services'
modern environmental agenda. A decade ago, most local authorities saw recycling
as an expensive option indulged in mostly by Germans. They considered a hole in
the ground the best place to chuck everything from old fridges to waste food.
Britain was at the bottom of the European recycling league, and most local
authorities wanted to stay there.

Since then, central government has been forced by Europe to set local
authorities difficult targets under the Landfill Directive to reduce and
control waste. Coerced by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs, and threatened with heavy penalties for not reducing and recycling -
but also encouraged with generous incentives to earn money if they waste less
and recycle more - even the most ecologically illiterate local authorities are
now doing something.

As with transport and climate, there are immense differences in performance on
waste between the best and the worst authorities, but the change in public
attitude towards waste has been spectacular and there is barely a household or
business in the country that has not learned to put its rubbish in different
bins.

The enormous differences in how local authorities have tackled the environment -
one of the key components of the government's overarching agenda on sustainable
development - suggest that targets, timetables, incentives and sticks can get
results, but there is growing concern among many local authorities that they
are becoming the battleground of central government departments wanting to
micro-manage their policies.

So many instructions are being handed down about how to implement central
government policy on the linked areas of environment, planning, public health,
food, waste, transport, energy efficiency and economic growth, that councils
say they are being overwhelmed and semi-paralysed into doing nothing.

When it comes to the environment, local authorities now have to steer between a
dozen or more increasingly detailed national, regional and local planning
policies, strategies, guidelines and principles. They must take into account
sustainable development policies and try to make sense of the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister's flagship Sustainable Communities Plan, which, some
critics feel, has little to do with the environment or sustainability. They are
also required to listen to business and communities but respect the limits of
the planet, too. The departments of the deputy prime minister, transport, trade
and industry, environment, health and the Treasury all have a say in how local
authorities work.

"We now listen to so many songs sung from so many choir sheets", says David
Sparks, leader of the Labour group on Dudley council and chair of the
environment board of the Local Government Association. "Elliot Morley - the
environment minister - bangs away on climate change, but he is part of a
government still not seeing the bigger picture. Quite simply, there are too
many strategies. There has been an unprecedented propensity to plan the future
without building it," says Sparks.

It is now so serious, he says, that it is hindering local government, which
having been keen to implement environmental policies now wants the easy life.
"People in local authorities are becoming cynical and this can poison the whole
system. Frankly, we have too many plans. Some local authorities are lost. They
end up doing nothing about the environment."

The irony is that public awareness and goodwill towards the environment is at
its highest level in 15 years and the global stakes have never been higher. The
latest evidence from surveys and opinion polls suggests strong underlying
levels of public support for clear, consistent environmental action.

In fact, much has been done. "Compared to a few years ago, huge strides have
been made and the awareness of local authorities is higher. But many
authorities still do not equate the local with the global. They do not realise
that their actions are having a global effect," says Sparks.

"There is a lot more awareness now," agrees Chris Church, a founder of the
Community Development Foundation and an experienced sustainable development
adviser to local authorities. "Even the worst authority is far ahead of where
it was in 1995. Central government's target-setting has been invaluable, but
when that turns into micro-management you get people who only want to meet the
targets and go so far.

"What has happened is that the environment has not been mainstreamed. Local
authorities' role in implementing national strategy is now clear but local
governments are struggling to meet targets," he adds.

According to Church, many of today's problems with local authorities go back to
the 2000 Local Government Act, when there was a vociferous debate about whether
authorities should be given a power to promote the economic, social and
environmental wellbeing of their citizens (which makes it all optional and
easily avoided), or be given a duty (which makes it mandatory and unavoidable).
"As ever, the compromisers won the day. 'Power' went in, 'duty' lost out, with
the majority of local authorities backsliding on their sustainable development
responsibilities as a direct consequence", he says.

"I don't see much evidence so far that many local authorities are looking far
beyond the 'clear and green' litter and graffiti agenda. There's good practice
everywhere, but there's a lot of duff work as well".

Environment groups such as Friends of the Earth, Transport 2000 and the Campaign
to Protect Rural England, which are now deeply engaged in the nitty-gritty of
planning and sustainable development issues, are broadly sympathetic to the
problems of local authorities. "We are becoming more and more centralised in
Britain. Local authorities are in a different league now to what they were
before but sometimes the guidance they get is so vague as to be meaningless",
says parliamentary campaigner Martyn Williams.

On the other hand, he says, they must raise their game on the environment
urgently because most of of the key indicators are going in the wrong
direction. Traffic is getting worse, air pollution is not improving, carbon
emissions are increasing, the amount of waste being landfilled has only just
started to decline, consumption is growing rapidly and national housebuilding
strategies are chewing up the countryside.

"There are colossal differences between local authorities," says Meacher. "The
good ones really are pushing ever skywards and the rest are being dragged
kicking and screaming to higher standards but are definitely moving. A huge
amount more could be done, though, especially with things like energy
efficiency. It hasn't really been attempted yet."