Climate Change
RAF work on Climate Change
Climate Change - What can your parish do?
Climate Change Conference May 13th
This was the first specifically targeted RAF conference and we had a good response from Parish Councilors. It was an information packed day and if we repeat we need more time for interaction.
We are analyzing the feedback forms and the issues raised during the workshops.
I will be discussing further activity with the RAF steering group in early June. If anyone who attended wishes to send further comment or suggestions please email YHRAF@askham-bryan.ac.uk
We have attached below the papers which were presented for your information Be aware that some of these files are quite large and if you do not have access to Broadband may take a while to download. |
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Paul Hudson, BBC Look North's Weather Presenter and Climate correspondent presented an overview of what climate change is, including evidence for man’s influence and what climate change means in reality to Yorkshire, with projections to 2020, 2050 and 2080. 5.09MB
Arthur Barker, Chair of the Y&H Regional Climate Change Executive Group, outlined the regional structures relevant to climate change and their objectives. Including the role of the Y&H Climate Change Executive group, Yorkshire Forward and links to LAAs and local authorities. 66KB
Anna Steynor, UK Climate Impacts Programme, introduced the UKCIP Local Climate Impacts Profile tool which helps users think about weather events that have impacted them in the past, allowing them to assess their vulnerability to the potential impacts of climate change. 863KB
Dave Cherry, Leeds City Council, presented a case study of the councils use of UKCIP's Local Climate Impacts Profile tool and some examples of implemented adaptation techniques. 909KB
Jeff Pacey, The Environment Agency, 'Top to Bottom; River Catchment Water Flows', set the context for the whole catchments context of water flows and the potential for communities to take action. 1.33MB
Richard Robinson, The Environment Agency, 'Surface Water - Peaks and Surges' set to increase understanding of the Parish's overall capacity to cope with more extreme weather events, particularly those related to water flows. 426KB
Vince Carter, The Forestry Commission ‘Shade and Shelter and the Regional Forestry Strategy’ presented evidence of the value of trees to climate change adaptation in rural communities. 569KB
Dave Thompson, Natural England 'The Birds and The Bees' Focused on how climate changes may affect wildlife and impacts on England’s natural environment and how can the parish environs be adapted to accommodate such change.1.34MB
Ceri Wyborn, Y&H Public Health Observatory 'Health Involvement and Implications', approached the health risks of climate risks and how community support might be harnessed to help and alert health service providers.1.08MB
David Gluck, Ecotec, considered the research question 'Does policy work towards the creation and maintenance of genuinely sustainable communities in rural areas in the face of equally genuine concerns regarding climate change and the need to mitigate against the effects of this and adapt to its potential impacts?' 334KB
Questions at Conference.
A summary of main questions can be found here. Please be aware these are from notes taken by secretariat during the proceedings and have not been sent to questioners for correction or comment so may not be a absolutely true record.
Summary of completed evaluation forms.
A Summary of completed evaluation forms is available here.
RAF Member Comment.
I thought the RAF Seminar on Climate Change Adaptation was a really good event to get people thinking about adaptation and how they might plan to deliver the action needed. You may have these links already but I thought they might be useful in terms of examples of adaptation studies at a catchment and regional level. There may be actions that could be applied at a more local level.
One is the Wear Adaptation study which can be view through the following link http://www.climatene.org.uk/ in the Action in the NE tab, adaptation.
The other is the NE Adaptation study again through the same page on the http://www.climatene.org.uk/ website. I'm sure if you want a specific link then that would be possible by contacting them via email on admin@climateNE.org.uk or Adrian Hilton NE Regional Climate Change Coordinator on adrian.hilton@sustaine.com.
Your attendees might also be interested in a report on housing which looks at Retrofitting Existing Homes for Climate Change Impact and con be downloaded from the following site http://www.london.gov.uk/trccg/publications.jsp.
Gail Hammond
Principal Officer Climate Change & Sustainable Development
ext 2059
Climate Change News
Yorkshire Dales
Have issued a special edition of their Newspaper exploring what climate change may mean to the Park.
Y&H Regional CC
Adaptation Study group launched.
Pitt Flooding Review
Sir Michael Pitt gave a keynote speech on his up to date thoughts. They are quite relevant to the issues to be raised at the Parish Conference.
New Climate, New Crops?
The role of science, policy and the food chain in identifying opportunities for growing produce in Britain's future climate. A one-day Conference on 18 June 2008 at Hilton, Kensington, London.
Full details and to registration.
Growing Old in A Changing Climate Workshop - held in York.
The speakers papers are available here. These papers are very interesting. The one by Dominic Harrison Deputy Director of Public Health GONW has particular relevance to community action and is relevant to our conference. Shelagh was heavily involved so will give you further information.
Researchers identify the top dozen ways to reduce your carbon footprint.
RAF work on Climate Change: October/November 2007
At the Forum meeting of 26th April we held a showing of the All Gore film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and had a talk from Cllr Arthur Barker about the Y&H Assembly work (see www.yourclimate.org). Following discussion at the meeting Forum members asked that the RAF investigate Climate Change work with parishes. Significant investigation has now taken place and it has been agreed that such project work would concentrate on adaptation. At the Forum meeting of 25th September a paper was presented giving outline thoughts on some possible work, please see here.
The Forum decided to take these ideas forward and agreed the next step to be a seminar for Parish Council Chairs and Clerks to be held in early spring 2008. We are particularly interested in unearthing any overlapping projects in order to avoid duplication and we need anyone who thinks they have identified such work to tell us please. We have found in our research a lot of different threads of work going on rather independently so finding overlap is quite difficult. Our work is likely to be in river catchments draining into Ouse from the Dales.
In our research we have identified some key references and we list them below for your information.
There are also some Public Sector lead organisation references:
Please see the Nottingham Declaration Action Pack to start.
Oxfordshire are working with UKCIP www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/wps/portal/publicsite.
Defra have published an indicator called “Climate-resilient Local Area“ for use by Local Councils to measure performance www.defra.gov.uk/environment/localgovindicators/pdf/Indicators/Adaptation.pdf .
The European angle is covered by “Living with Climate Change in Europe“ http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/adaptation/faq_en.htm.
Useful reference reading and information include:
Parish and Town councils – Act on CO 2
Ways to tackle climate change. A brand new booklet Copies see here or there are a number of copies available from the RAF secretariat.
Climate Change and Local Communities; How prepared are you?
Published by UKCIP 2003 being revised. Available to download here or a small number of copies available from the Secretariat.
Climate Change adaptation by design Town and Country Planning Association:
A guide for sustainable communities, www.tcpa.org.uk go to publications for download or request for hardcopy. This is a very comprehensive guide dealing with design solutions for climate change
There are some specialist booklets:
Yorkshire and Humber Regional Forestry Strategy
Forestry and Flooding Briefing Note December 2007 www.valueoftrees.org
Climate Change Wildlife and adaptation:
20 tough questions and 20 rough answers by RSPB www.rspb.org.uk
The Met Office
Operates out of the Hadley Centre and has lots of prediction modeling www.metoffice.gov.uk and follow Hadley links
Useful reading
Part of the Solution NFU/CLA/AIC Climate Change Task force Report. It is an excellent summary of Agric/forest position
I have basically included references to adaptation, whilst other wider references and mitigation are covered in less detail elsewhere on our site. The detailed discussions which have taken place can be found in the meeting section of our website.
Graham Ward
Y&H RAF Chair
Environment Agency response to proposal paper
Soil - A Precious Resource
Working With Others - Building Trust With Communities
EA annotated proposal paper
Assembly Activity on Climate Change
The Assembly December Newsletter outlines their present initiatives. Firstly a scrutiny starting this month and secondly a Regional Adaptation Study. More information on the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly website or (PDF version)
Climate business pledge
Tomorrow’s England is a DEFRA funded project linking 11 environmental and community organisations. It aims to find out how close to home climate change might be for people in this country and to paint a picture of places and lives, business and government, in England in 2025 and 2050 should current trends in carbon emissions continue. Tomorrow’s England wants to collaborate with businesses who are already facing up to climate change and factoring it into their business. See the leaflet for more information or contact: Susan Brown at Tomorrow’s England at info@climatechangeandme.net or on 07961 342247.
Evaluating the Contribution that Key Regional Strategies Make Towards Addressing Climate Change
Final Report
Final Report Appendicies
Executive Summary - RAF Chair recommends reading
Energy White Paper - DTI
Defra's Waste Strategy for England 2007
www.fcrn.org.uk The Food Climate Research Network
www.climatechallenge.gov.uk
Futures Foundation - Shopping Miles (Chapter 4) |