Climate Change Strategy

Goal: Ensuring a just transition for all

7.1 Tackling the climate and nature emergencies presents a huge opportunity to address current inequities and improve the quality of life for all. However, without a considered approach this could have the opposite effect. We are facing a green industrial revolution moving away from fossil fuels, and this will impact on jobs and sectors. Coventry wants to ensure a just transition, so no one is left behind. This underpins the whole Strategy.

7.2 The Green Industrial Revolution provides considerable opportunities for future employment to offset potential jobs losses and to grow the local economy. Creating good quality, skilled jobs is an important way of reducing inequities. Net zero jobs are on average better paid, more productive and hotspots of activity are taking place in some of the most deprived parts of the country, helping to improve living standards in those areas. Growing these industries locally will increase economic prosperity, in order for local people to directly benefit they need to be equipped with the right skills, for this reason training and upskilling is really important to ensure we get the local benefits as part of a just transition.

7.3 The issue of a just transition also extends to the changes we are going to need to make to our everyday lives. We will need to improve the energy efficiency of homes, move towards low carbon travel, prioritise space for nature and food growing, and create more climate resilient infrastructure as part of our holistic approach in this Strategy. These all could contribute to tackling existing inequities in the city, resulting in lower bills, improved accessibility to facilities and green space and improved physical health and mental wellbeing. We need to involve communities and work with them to understand barriers or there is a risk that opportunities won’t be felt by everyone, and existing social injustices could widen.

7.4 Issues relating to this pathway was where most feedback was received during the consultation, showing that local people are worried about being left behind.

Planning for a Just Transition

7.5 We need to better understand what a just transition looks like for Coventry, in order to plan for one. The Fairer Green Pathway Group commissioned an independent study to examine examples of best practice in overseeing the delivery of a Just Transition approach to sustainability. The Just Transition Report highlighted the need for all of the Pathways to acknowledge and identify practical solutions to ensure that inequities are addressed and that no one is excluded or disadvantaged because of an action or recommendation when driving forward changes to address sustainability and climate change.

7.6 We need an in-depth understanding of which sectors, jobs and communities in our city are likely to be affected, alongside the opportunities new sectors will bring and develop a route map to establish how we develop green skills and jobs to match growing demand. This will include considering how we can support sectors where there are likely to be job losses with training and skills to transition to new sectors.

Figure 25 – Making Transition Plans (Just Grantham Research Institute, 2022)

7.7 The success of this will rely on involvement of affected people across the city. As figure 25 shows, it is important to involve those impacted by the necessary changes brought about by our transition to net zero in planning for the future. This will require a fully coordinated approach, with collaborative working across sectors and communities to build support and develop a plan that is deliverable.

How a Just Transition can reduce existing inequalities and inequities in Coventry

7.8 The landmark Fair Society Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review) 2010 outlined the scale of health inequalities in England and the actions required to reduce them. In response, Coventry became the first UK city to adopt Marmot City status in 2013 and set up the Coventry Marmot Partnership to strategically address inequalities. The city’s environment impacts the health of our residents. Tackling the causes of climate change will help to improve environmental conditions, reduce inequity across the city, and improve health, wellbeing and quality of life for all.

7.9 It is important that we use existing research to help make evidence-based decisions and develop the evidence base in relation to the triple win of health, health equity and environmental sustainability through research collaborations with Coventry’s Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC).

7.10 Transport accounts for 29% of emissions in Coventry but one in three households doesn’t have access to a car, rising to one in two in more deprived areas. Although people living in more deprived areas have lower car ownership, the impact of cars and traffic in terms of noise and air pollution is worse in these areas. More positively, this also means that many households are already walking, cycling or using public transport as their main way of getting around the city – this presents an opportunity for shared knowledge and when we look at how to encourage others to consider other modes of travel over the car.

7.11 Coventry has the most electric charging points of any city outside of London, and whilst electric car use is slowly increasing, there needs to be a citywide drive to find ways to incentivise the uptake of electric vehicles and make them more affordable and accessible to residents and businesses. This could include introducing electric car clubs, supporting second hand markets to bring down costs, salary sacrifice and try before you buy schemes alongside a move to electric fleets. The Council is also seeking ways to improve access to charging points for households without a drive – which includes citywide on street charging points and a new Kerbo charging pilot using gully channels to connect chargers directly from homes to kerb.

7.12 In 2021 Coventry was named as one of 28 towns and cities in England where Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) levels in the atmosphere from cars and the burning of fossil fuels in wood stoves were forecast to exceed legal limits. The city has developed an Air Quality Action Plan, focusing on delivering infrastructure work which avoided the need for a charging zone which could have had a harmful impact on residents and businesses.

7.13 Work is still needed to support households that use wood burning stoves, which are a significant source of local air pollution that can be harmful to health.

7.14 22.2% or nearly 31,000 of Coventry households are in fuel poverty, based on 2022 data. This figure has increased by over 2% since 2020 due to the cost-of-living crisis and energy insecurity resulting in a significant rise in bills. The impact of living in cold, damp, poorly insulated homes can be really harmful to physical health and mental well-being. This can be addressed through home retrofit, where there is often grant funding targeted at low-income households helping people out of fuel poverty which can have a huge benefit to improving overall quality of life. 

7.15 The Council provides an Affordable Warmth Programme, currently working with ‘Act on Energy’ a locally based charity to provide advice and support to households affected by fuel poverty. A vital area of work is to ensure the most vulnerable in society are involved in planning for the future and provided with practical advice and support for accessing funding from the Council and government retrofit grants. 

7.16 There has been a slow uptake in retrofit grants, highlighting a significant challenge in gaining involvement from local residents and property owners in investing in energy efficiency measures, even when at no cost to the household. Coventry’s Net Zero Carbon Routemap identified that six out of the top ten most effective measures for carbon reduction related to domestic retrofit so involving communities in addressing the retrofit challenge is a top priority and key to delivering a just transition.

7.17 Green spaces help to cool cities down, provide habitats for nature and are an important amenity for local people. Coventry has some of the highest areas of green deprivation in the country, as identified in a 2021 New Economics Foundation Study, which means that in some parts of the city people have poor or limited access to high quality green space. Action is needed to prioritise areas of the city which have the poorest access to quality green space and lowest levels of tree canopy cover and to involve local residents in planning for the greening of their areas.

7.18 Over 20% of the city is in food poverty, with a growing reliance on food banks and charities to provide support. The Council is a member of and works closely with the ‘Coventry Food Network’ whose Food Charter highlights the following principles for action:

1. proclaims the universal right to food
2. promotes a community food culture
3. enables food producing environments and reduces food waste
4. supports ethical business and social enterprise
5. works for food justice

7.19 Coventry was awarded Sustainable Food Places Status thanks to the number of ways it supports communities with a discounted food scheme, school holiday hunger projects, community cafés, social supermarkets, food growing projects and cooking programmes. This activity needs to be expanded particularly in deprived areas to provide more opportunities for local food growing, supplemented by training in gardening and cookery skills. This will help to provide more fresh seasonal produce to families who need it most.

Engaging and involving stakeholders

7.20 A just transition cannot be delivered without the involvement and support of those affected. The first step is people need to understand what a just transition is and what it could mean to them. We need to identify and work with affected stakeholders (which could be individuals, communities, workers, unions etc) to develop an understanding of the issues and opportunities that affect them and work collaboratively to identify action to be taken. This will require strong leadership, and the relevant skills and resource so that the Council and other stakeholders can involve the people of Coventry in planning for positive change.

Recommendations

7.21 To deliver a just transition we must acknowledge all inequalities and how the steps taken towards net zero can simultaneously increase equity across the city, ensuring no one is left behind. Whilst there are many existing challenges across the city, taking a just transition approach provides significant opportunity to address these and create a fairer, brighter future increasing quality of life for all. The Fairer Greener Pathway Group recommends:

• We need greater understanding of the sectors, industries, businesses and communities affected by the climate crisis and the city’s transition to Net Zero by doing research to show us where and how we risk creating/worsening inequality and where the opportunities are for positively improving the lives of people in the city through climate action in the city.
• The drive, focus and co-ordination of efforts across the city to achieve a Just Transition for all must be ensured through adequate resourcing. This means finding the funds and/or the people with the time, capacity and skills to ensure that everyone in the city who wants to can work together to ensure a Just Transition, which should be overseen by the Council.
• The ‘engagement’ elements of the Coventry Climate Change Strategy must be delivered according to the ‘eight principles for a just transition for Coventry’. Engagement must be with people in affected sectors, industries, businesses and communities, and must be creative and innovative in the ways that they are involved in the planning for a more sustainable future for the city.