As the UK moves towards greater devolution under Andy Burnham’s premiership, local and combined authorities should be thinking about the role that mayors could play in the transition to a greener future.
Metro mayors in particular have the potential to deliver a more just transition that is sensitive to the needs and challenges of their places, delivered in a joined-up way with local communities and organisations. This is particularly relevant given PM Andy Burnham’s commitment to growing devolution, giving current and future mayors a key role in the government’s future.
Under the new government, funding and powers are being moved away from central control and towards local leaders. Under the English Devolution Act, devolved regions in England can now control of new areas including skills, transport and housing, and there are plans to give devolved regions a share of locally raised taxes. These new powers and resources significantly expand the remit of local leaders, opening avenues for regional climate transitions. They also bring about increased accountability, with regions looking towards their leaders to deliver on local and national priorities.
How can mayors support a just climate transition?
Last month the JUST Centre co-hosted an event with the Institute for Government as part of their DevoLab series, exploring the opportunity for places to pilot and test innovative approaches to challenges including the green transition. The event explored the potential role that mayors can play in a just transition, with speakers sharing case studies of mayoral authorities leading the charge.
The case studies showcase elements of the transition to a greener future that mayors are well placed to support, particularly joining up local and regional actors, embedding justice and working with the unique assets and opportunities of places. These elements are crucial to ensuring the green transition is just, and can support a more equitable distirbution of the benefits and impacts of environmental policies and initiatives. Without these considerations, we risk climate transitions that negatively impact those who are already vulnerable, and potentially create new vulnerabilities, as we have witnessed throughout this summer’s consecutive heatwaves.
James Johnson, Head of Regional Programme at theNorth West Net Zero Hub, shared how the hub is working to translate the country’s green ambitions to the needs and opportunities of the region. The North West has lots of opportunities for decarbonisation paired with long-established devolved powers, creating fertile ground to deliver a transition that is contextualised to the region. The Hub has created a regional roadmap to localise the Green Energy Superpower Mission, and is supporting local area energy planning to deliver an energy transition that is both aligned in its aims and responsive to places.
Rosa Foster, Director of the Yorkshire & Humber Climate Commission, spoke on the importance of placing justice at the centre of regional climate ambitions. For the Commission, justice is equally important to emissions reduction, nature recovery, adaptaiton and resilience. To support this aim, the Commission is focusing on convening cross-sector collaborations and overturning power dynamics to enable collaborative and responsive action.
Barbara Leach, Local Net Zero Accelerator Programme lead for West Midlands Combined Authority, shared how they’re bridging localised action with large scale investment. The region has a wealth of energy projects that are delivering change in places, but struggle to draw down funding. The Accelerator Programme is joining up projects, identifying and addressing skills and capabilities gaps, and creating an aggregated project pipeline with the capacity to attract investment while continuing to deliver benefits to places.
Mat Paterson, Deputy Director of the JUST Centre, highlighted the challenges the mayors may face in attempting to enact a local just transition. For instance, mayors may face competing priorities, particularly between the directives of ‘good growth’ and building new housing and the preservation of green spaces. Additionally, mayors may struggle to unlock funding towards climate transitions, particularly because there is no statutory climate duty.
Place-based challenges, place-led solutions
Although the event demonstrated the valuable work that mayoral authorities are already doing, questions remain as to how this can be scaled across the UK. Mayoral authorities face a range of challenges, which may look different between places. For example, because of the lack of statutory mandate, the green transition may hold different degree of relative importance across places, in line with mayors’ strategic focus. This is reflected in differing levels of capacity, capability and resource differing with some mayoral authorities, like the Greater London Authority, having specific deputy mayors and dedicated environment and energy teams, while other authorities may have little to no staff dedicated to green transitions.
Additionally, regions may face different challenges related to green transitions, for instance the nature and carbon intensiveness of local industry, levels of fuel poverty, and the quality of housing stock. Its important to consider both the starting point and readiness of different mayoral authorities, and to support capacity-building in the regions that need it most. The JUST Centre’s readiness tool will support places across the UK to understand their starting point and crystallise challenges specific to their regions and places.
A challenge also remains in moving from isolated instances or initiatives towards widespread proliferation of good practice. There is an opportunity to capture what is working when it comes to supporting a just transition in regions, and transferring ‘ingredients’ for success across places while ensuring approaches are responsive to the places’ particular conditions. Peer learning and knowledge exchange is crucial, but can be impeded by lack of capacity and competition for funding, so there is an opportunity for national government become a connective infrastructure between places, supporting the sharing of resources and capabilities so all places can benefits.
Mayoral authorities have the potential to deliver a just transition in their places, one that is place-sensitive, joined up and responsive to the needs and opportunities of local communities. Although challenges may remain, the ‘devolution revolution’ presents an exciting opportunity for local leaders to demonstrate how their places can do things differently, and lead the way for a just transition that is not only place-sensitive but place-led.
