The roles of ideas, networks and citizenship in the implementation of local climate emergency plans

Investigating local climate emergency declarations

The roles of ideas, networks and citizenship in the implementation of local climate emergency plans

Investigating local climate emergency declarations

Project title: The roles of ideas, networks and citizenship in the implementation of local climate emergency plans

Funded by: Economic and Social Research Council (South West Doctoral Training Partnership)

Project duration: October 2024-September 2028

Project partners: University of Plymouth, Devon Climate Emergency Partnership, South West Doctoral Training Partnership

University of Plymouth staff: Professor Ian Bailey (Member, Devon Climate Task Force), Miss Lisseth Ring, Professor Richard Yarwood, Claire Pearce (Chair, Devon Climate Task Force)

This project investigates the processes through which local climate emergency declarations are being translated into practical actions to achieve net zero emissions and the factors that influencing their capacity to encourage and enable local action on climate change.

Project objectives:

To examine how organisations involved in local climate emergency initiatives work within networks to develop programmes of action to achieve the goals of local climate plans.
To examine factors shaping their ability to galvanise support among businesses, civil society groups and other local actors for climate action and to promote practical programmes to reduce emissions.
To examine how local community groups involved in action on climate change are interacting with, and responding to, local authority climate plans and what factors shape their motivations and capacity to act.
To explore how insights gained from the research enhance understandings of knowledge about the processes of translating local climate plans into meaningful action and the advancement of strategies to achieve net zero emissions.

Local action is recognised in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to be crucial contributors to achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and the development of place-appropriate responses to the challenges of climate change. Translating concerns into action requires groups of actors from across the public sector, the business community and civil society to work collaboratively to reduce emissions while ensuring also actions promote equity, inclusivity and societal wellbeing

Professor Ian Bailey
Professor of Environmental Politics

Many UK local authorities have made climate emergency declarations and developed local climate plans (LCPs) to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. Local action is seen as crucial to achieving inclusive and place-based responses to climate change but faces multiple challenges, including: building support for actions; funding; aligning stakeholder objectives; influencing emissions sources from outside regions; and ensuring delegation of powers and supportive national policies.

In order to address these challenges, many local authorities have created new governance partnerships that seek to enhance the effectiveness and accountability of local climate initiatives. However, understanding of how local climate plans are being translated into action, and of what works and what doesn’t, remains patchy.

The goal of this research is to analyse the processes through which local authorities are using climate emergency declarations and local climate plans to try to galvanise societal engagement with, and action on, climate change.

The study is based on an in-depth study of the Devon Carbon Plan and employs a multi-disciplinary and multi-methods approach to explore how partner organisations in local climate networks and civil society groups collaborate to achieve the goal of effective and inclusive action to mitigate and adapt to climate change.