Cutting emissions and getting ready for extreme weather

A health action plan to support vulnerable residents during heatwaves and the imminent completion of the streetlighting LED replacement programme are among the key points in a new climate action report for Oxfordshire.

Our cabinet this week noted the biannual update on the delivery of our climate action programme.

The three pillars of the climate action programme are: becoming a climate active council; decarbonising the council’s estate and operations by 2030; and enabling Oxfordshire’s transition to net zero.

In the last five years, our climate leadership, working alongside committed local partners, has pulled over ￡210 million of investment into Oxfordshire to make homes more energy efficient, expand electric vehicle charging, reduce waste, promote active travel and invest in electric buses.

Emissions are being cut by the installation of energy efficient LED streetlighting across Oxfordshire. The project has cost ￡40m over four years but will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being produced by 70 per cent and save around ￡75m in energy costs over the next 20 years.

A scheme to help schools improve their energy efficiency has been extended into 2024-25, and the council has also been providing home upgrade grants for low-income residents.

Another key task is to keep Oxfordshire’s people, businesses and institutions safe from an increasingly chaotic and destructive climate.

The council’s vital community services are directly threatened by more frequent extreme weather, including this winter’s flooding, and heatwaves, as experienced in Oxfordshire in 2022 when temperatures reached a record 38.4C.

The report highlights a heat health action plan, which has been developed to support vulnerable residents during possible heatwaves and planning for extreme heat.

The council has?also been?working with Exeter University on a toolkit, shortly to be released,?to help local decision makers improve climate adaptation and resilience, and to develop bespoke climate adaptation action plans for council-maintained schools to reduce flooding and overheating.

The report also measures progress towards enabling Oxfordshire’s transition to net zero by monitoring scenarios in the Pathway to Zero Carbon (PAZCO) document.

This is a publication partly commissioned by the council and produced by Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and the sustainability consultancy Bioregional to provide an evidence base for the transition.

While most of these measures are not within our direct control, we can influence a significant number of them.

We want to work with the government to help accelerate decarbonisation for businesses, homeowners and public and voluntary sectors.