Brent's Austerity Cuts - a Disaster for the Environment

Brent FoE and Brent Campaign Against Climate Change outside Energy Solutions, Welsh Harp

This joint letter from Brent Friends of the Earth and Brent Campaign Against Climate Change was published in the Brent and Kilburn Times today:

Imagine our neighbourhoods and parks strewn with litter, fly-tipped with bulky waste, and green wheely bins being fought over. A borough where our children are deprived of the chance to learn about nature, and where vulnerable residents needing advice on fuel poverty have nowhere to turn. This is what Brent's austerity agenda will mean if the Council's budget proposals go ahead.

The proposed cuts will mean no street sweeping in residential roads, no litter collected in parks at weekends, charging us £15 to collect bulky items, and £40 a year for our green wheely bins. It will close two valuable institutions – the Welsh Harp Education Centre (a unique resource that inspires our kids to learn about the natural environment) and Energy Solutions (who help residents, landlords, schools and businesses reduce fuel bills - cutting Brent's carbon footprint and helping fight climate change.) The grants for these, a mere £30,000 and £50,000, are a fraction of the £54 million cuts overall.

Brent's own “Green Charter” will also be scrapped and, apart from statutory monitoring, all Council work on sustainability and climate change will go. All this a time when we need more than ever to build local resilience for an uncertain future.

Whilst we acknowledge the Council's difficulties, and other vital services are also at stake, these cuts are short-sighted easy targets for which we all will pay a heavy price.

Viv Stein

on behalf of Brent Friends of the Earth and Brent Campaign against Climate Change

Teacher organisations, schools and pupils have been taking up the issue of the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre Closure.

There is a petition to save Energy Solutions HERE  It needs many, many more signatures.

Brent project seeks to reduce fuel poverty and carbon emissions

The Brent Campaign Against Climate Change, of which I am chair, has had preliminary discussions with Cllr Roxanne Mashari, lead member for the Environment, on the possibility of setting up a Low Carbon Zone in the borough after our Secretary, Ken Montague, made a presentation to the Brent Executive.

That is selecting an area where a concerted programme of measures aimed at reducing energy consumption through structural changes (roof and wall insulation, double glazing, micro-generation) and educational initiatives. It would include housing, businesses, schools and public buildings in the area. The LCZ would serve as an exemplar, that after valuation could be rolled out across the borough in due course.

We pointed out that  money was available through the ECO (Energy Company Obligation) which is designed to tackle fuel poverty, affordable warmth and carbon emissions at zero cost to those in highest need.

I therefore welcome a report that goes before Monday's Executive which sets out a tender process to find a project partner to deliver an ECO programme in Brent. LINK

The report sets out the project aims:

The project’s key objectives are to:-

• Improve the energy efficiency of properties and reduce energy consumption

• Reduce carbon emissions,

• Reduce consumer energy costs and alleviate fuel poverty; and,

• Safeguard and create employment opportunities.

As the project’s primary requirement is to deliver the required improvements to domestic properties, the delivery partner will be required to treat domestic properties as the service priority, i.e. marketing its services, facilitating customers, explaining and securing the sign-up and installation of appropriate energy efficiency improvements across the Borough. 

It is envisaged that a significant portion of the market and therefore a key target for the project will be ‘hard to treat’ domestic properties i.e. those that cannot accommodate cost-effective measures and may therefore have missed out on previous energy improvements. These properties will have the potential to access ECO funding. Given the priority to be attributed to domestic interventions over non-domestic the balance of the finance, scope and value of the opportunity will favour the former. It is likely that any scheme will include the HRA stock as a priority but it should be stressed that fuel poverty and energy efficiency issues affect the growing private sector and there is an expectation that any scheme will seek to address these issues. 

Furthermore, in order to achieve long term investment in the Borough’s supply chain and employment opportunities, some form of confidence in the longevity of this market locally is required. Consequently a 5 year contract (with up to a two year extension if necessary) is sought, with a break clause included at the end of the first phase of ECO to safeguard against any major changes in legislation/obligations.

The report recognises, as with the LCZ, that an area by area approach may be beneficial:

The ECO is measured in terms of meeting carbon reduction targets; different types of energy efficiency works therefore attract different levels of funding. In addition, the situation of the existing tenant or homeowner can influence the level of funding given. A commercial partner may be likely to seek to meet its ECO obligations in the cheapest and most efficient way, for example by carrying out work on an estate or area basis to achieve economies of scale. Any commercial imperative will need to be balanced against the council’s own priorities in terms of the greatest benefit to low income households. 

There will be occasions whereby an area by area approach is the most appropriate and could offer wider regeneration opportunities and it is likely that stock within the HRA will fit this model. The position may be complicated by the presence of leasehold homes within a block - for example, if in a low- rise block of flats, external ECO funding was available to cover all of the social housing properties but within the block, 5% of flats were privately owned and considered ‘able to pay’. The position of leaseholders varies according to the terms of the lease: in some cases, the council is entitled to re-charge for improvements while in others this option may not be available. Since the expenditure in this case is not incurred by the council, it is envisaged that any re-charge would be waived. Additional staff resources may also be required to support the project and contract manage the partner. The specification will include an expectation that any requirement for this will be funded by the partner. Any other costs, which will include officer time, will be met from existing budgets.  

The Council has an existing long-standing SLA arrangement in place with ‘Energy Solutions’ and their role in this project in terms of stock analysis, encouraging take up and identifying our most vulnerable residents who require assistance needs to be formalised. 

Climate Change: Education, Employment and Engagement

This 2008 film warned of the perils ahead. Have we done enough in the last 5 years?
 
The Mayor of Brent and Council Leader Muhammed Butt will present prizes to the winners of the Brent Climate Change Competition at 1.30pm on Wednesday March 20th at the Climate Change Conference being held at College of North West London, Dudden Hill.

This full day conference for 200 older secondary school students and further education students will include film, panel discussions and workshops all aimed at raising awareness of climate change, publicising university courses and training opportunities in the green technology sector, and publicising opportunities to engage in campaigning activities on the issue.

The conference is jointly organised by Brent Council, Brent Campaign Against Climate Change and the College of North West London.

Speaker	Title
Caren Trafford Environmental writer, Presenter, Educator	"One world… one problem"
Carly Walker-Dawson   Deputy Chair of Woodcraft Folk British Youth Council Vice-Chair (Participation & Development) IFM-SEI Rainbow Network Co-ordinator	If Climate Change takes place at the same speed as it does now, what will the UK look like in the year 2113?
Isobel Edwards   YUSU Environment and Ethics Officer and People & Planet society Treasurer	Easy changes to make to the life of a student which can have a big impact on their carbon footprint
Kelly EatonWaste Development Officer - Waste Policy Team - Recycling & WasteBrent Council	Recycling and One Planet Thinking: Reducing your impact on climate change
Thivya Jeyashanker & Edison Lasku Brent youth parliament Chair and Vice Chair	“Encouraging engagement and participation of young people”

Schools urged to book for Brent Climate Change Conference

Free Invitation to “Brent Students Conference on Climate Change”  20 March 2013

Brent Council, in conjunction with the College of North West London, and Brent Campaign against Climate Change are organising a conference open to all students in Years 11–13 and Further Education. The conference will be held at the Dudden Hill Campus of the College of North West London, Dudden Hill Lane, NW10 2XD.

I hope you have already received the Climate Change invitation letter, sent by post on 13 December.

The aim of the conference is to increase awareness of climate change and discuss ways to lessen and  adapt to its effects. To encourage the engagement and participation of the young people, the conference will hold a number of environmental activities.

The event will also provide information and advice on relevant courses in Further and in Higher Education and careers in related industries. 

The conference will run from 10.00 am – 3.45 pm and be divided into three sessions:

Morning Session: The Issues of Climate Change

Short introductory talks and Q/A with a panel of speakers.

Lunch Session: Courses and Careers

A tour of the college’s Industry Week displays and an opportunity to talk to employers and admissions tutors. 

Afternoon Session: Tackling Climate Change

 

Supervised workshops exploring how students can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change in their schools & colleges, or through participation in community and campaign groups.

                                                        

Free lunch and refreshments will be provided.

I would be grateful if you could bring the details of this letter to the attention of your staff/students and encourage them to attend the conference. Teachers wishing to bring a group should express an interest by e-mailing environment@brent.gov.uk by Friday 8 February 2013, with an indication of likely numbers.

We would be happy to answer any further queries you may have, please call 020 8937 5564. Alternatively a team member accompanied by a Councillor can visit your school to discuss the conference. We will be contacting you in due course to see if you would like to arrange for a visit, either to meet with staff or talk to groups of students.

Yours sincerely,

Davide Pascarella

Environmental Projects & Policy Officer

Cllr Powney promises to investigate 'Low Carbon Zone' proposal

Could it be Brent or Wembley next?

 Making a presentation on Monday the the Brent Executive,  Ken  Montague, Secretary of Brent Campaign Against Climate Change, agreed with the Green Charter Annual Monitoring Report's comment that  while “there is progress in all seven areas of work” there was “room for improvement over the next year”. In particular he sought to bring to the Executive’s attention proposals jointly being developed by BCaCC and Brent Friends of the Earth as an outcome of their Community Briefing public meeting on 21 November, which council leader Muhammed Butt attended. A report  of the meeting has  been circulated to Councillors.

The purpose of the Community Briefing meeting, which was to make local community leaders aware of the rapid depletion of the Arctic ice cap and its affect on weather patterns around the world. This had an indirect impact on people in Brent as many members of the local community have friends and families in parts of the world being devastated by floods, droughts and fires. It was also having a direct impact through its effect on the price and quality of food.

Ken addressed  two of the three proposals that came out of the briefing meeting, which aimed to develop a community response. The first of these was about reaching out to the local community to increase awareness of the seriousness and urgency of the need to mitigate climate change. The aim was to enhance and strengthen the work of the Sustainability Forum and the Brent Climate Change Steering Group, especially its Residents’ Steering Group. This meant sending speakers to meetings of tenants’ and residents’ associations, faith groups, trade unions, etc, and on occasion booking rooms for meetings. The first request to the Executive was therefore that those organisations like Brent CaCC and Brent FoE who were identified as Green Champions under the Brent Climate Change Strategy should have use of Council premises, including public libraries, free of charge.

Monatgue went on to draw the Executive’s attention to a proposal in the early stages of development by BCaCC and Brent FoE which would require support from the Council, advice from council officers, and the involvement of specific councillors. This was for a pilot scheme to establish a Low Carbon Zone in an area of the borough still to be identified in consultation with the Council. A Low Carbon Zone involved concentrating existing agencies on the area identified in order to generate awareness of the advantages to tenants and residents of implementing measures for energy conservation and the sourcing of power from renewables, to provide advice and guidance and facilitate discount buying, and to access funding to install insulation, double glazing and combined heat and power boilers. The “existing agencies” could include the Council, private companies, campaign groups including ourselves and Transition Town, the College of North West London, and the Brent TUC.

Central to the proposal was the possibility of accessing significant funds for these purposes from the Department of Energy and Climate Change under the Green New Deal. By way of an example he mentioned that a Community Interest Company in Barnet, “Energise Barnet”,LINK  was working with the Council in making a £200 million bid. A meeting of the Brent Residents’ Steering Group and council officers was being held on 22nd January to prepare a bid to DEC but this could only go ahead once the Council had decided whether to apply as a “Large Scale Green Deal Provider”, as a Marketing Partner” or a “Small Scale Green Deal Provider”. The second request to the executive was therefore that it make a decision on the form of its application in order to facilitate an appropriate bid to DEC being decided at the meeting on 22 January.

Responding, lead member for the environment  Cllr James Powney promised to designate an officer to investigate the proposal. 

Declaration of interest:  I am Chair of Brent Campaign Against Climate Change

Climate Change: Fears and Failures

Submerged footpath at West Hendon Playing Fields last weekend

Let's face it, the turnout at Saturday's Climate Change march, whether the BBC estimate of 300 or the organiser's 500, was poor. A climate crisis billed as threatening the very future of humankind could only get a handful of humans out on the street.  In the circumstances the media coverage we achieved was generous helped by the spectacle of a the erection of a fracking rig outside the House of Parliament.

Chatting in the crowd we speculated why with Hurricane Sandy, the floods in the UK, harvest failures in the US, more people were not concerned enough to come out. We joked that perhaps we needed the Thames Barrier to fail and Westminster to flood, before MPs took notice.  After all it was only when the stench of the Thames got severe enough to penetrate the Palace of Westminster that action was taken to build a proper sewage system.

However, also on Saturday, Anne Karpf's article in the Guardian LINK  reviewed the recently published Engaging with Climate Change, Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary Perspectives LINK .

Confessing to being a 'Climate-Change Ignorer' she says despite not being a sceptic she 'tunes out' when she hears apocalyptic warnings about global warming:

The fuse that trips the while circuit is a sense of helplessness. Whatever steps I take to counter global warming, however well-intentioned my brief bursts of zeal, they invariably end up feeling like like too little, too late.  The mismatch between the extremely dangerous state of the earth and my own feeble endeavours seems mockingly large. 

She goes on to describe some of the coping mechanisms described  in the book, including blame-shifting, technoptimism, hedonistic fatalism and dark optimism. It is argued, against the view of my colleague Brian Orr, that apocalyptic warnings are counter productive:

As Ed Miliband has observed, Martin Luther King never inspired millions by saying 'I have a nightmare'.

I would argue that the sense of helplessness is caused by the failure of politicians, governments and the UN, to face the crisis head on. It is as  if, faced with the Nazi menace in the second war, the government had, rather than mobilise troops and the economy and pour money into production and research,  instead asked everyone just to perform the home front task of digging for victory. Of course people would have felt helpless as German troops massed at the channel and bombs fell on our cities. Politicians now are in the equivalent position of those who ignored or down-played the rise of Nazism for fearing of frightening the people.

Here in Brent, in our own small way, following the briefing for councillors and the public, a paper has been produced outlining the extent of the crisis and some ideas for moving forward. A copy is available by clicking the link below:

 

Another dimension is making a link between the current economic crisis and climate change and on Sunday the following resolution from Green Left was passed by an overwhelming majority at the AGM of the Coalition of Resistance:

This conference notes that the current economic crisis is closely linked to a global ecological crisis particularly involving human caused climate change,. Neither crisis, in so far as they can be separated, is soluble under capitalist socio-economic arrangements. Technological fixes and geo-engineering enacted under capitalism can only be short term at best, since ecologically damaging forms of consumption and production are engendered and maintained by capitalism.

We therefore call on the coalition of resistance to recognise this publicly and include combating climate change in its campaigning agendas.

Scenes from the Climate Change March

Green Party stall at Grosvenor Square

Laying the pipeline from US Embassy to Canadian Embassy

International support

At Wesminster

The fracking rig is erected outside Parliament

The global food and climate crisis comes home to Brent

                                                   A global issue                 Photo: Shahrar Ali

There was a good turn-out for the community briefing on climate change and its impact last night thanks to the hard work of organisers Lia Colacicco of Brent Friends of the Earth and Ken Montague of the Brent Campaign Against Climate Change.

Introducing the meeting I spoke about the recent death of Jeff Bartley who as a Brent council officer championing the environmental cause had worked with many in the audience. I said that the best tribute we could pay him would be positive actions arising from our discussion. The meeting was partly a factual briefing but also  the beginning of a discussion to formulate a community response to the crisis.

As I was chairing I was unable to take copious notes but a detailed record of the meeting will be available at a later date.  However I can tell you that the illustrated review by Phil Thornhill (National coordinator of the Campaign Against Climate Change), of the latest scientific evidence of the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap, by area and by volume, brought home vividly the urgency of the situation and the upcoming climate catastrophe that it represents.

Phil  explained that the effect of the melting ice was to change the temperature gradient in the northern oceans which in turn was reducing the power of the jet stream. Severe droughts in Russia in 2011 and the USA this year, and recurring floods in Pakistan, were due to the jet stream becoming more sluggish and erratic.

He warned that Arctic sea ice will have completely disappeared in the summer months by 2016, which was the clearest evidence of rapid man-made climate change. The result would be an increasing number of severe weather events, affecting the price and quality of food around the world.

We are rightly so involved in the immediate crisis regarding the economy and the attacks on the welfare state that it is sometimes difficult to also keep a focus on this danger facing humanity.  However the climate crisis will  impact on the global economy as well as the local one, cause international conflict over food and water resources, create great movements of populations and in the process raise issues of social justice. Anger over rising food prices contributed to the social unrest behind the Arab Spring and failing harvests will increase the pressure on the world food market.

Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Food Sovereignty Programme Co-coordinator of Friends of the Earth International spoke about food supplies in the context of climate change.

She started with the startling fact that 1 billion of the world population is hungry while another 1 billion is obese.  It was estimated that 3 - 5 million people a year were dying as a result, and since 2008 two hundred million people had been pushed into hunger. She said it was not so much a question of there being a lack of food but the way it is produced and how it is distributed being the problem. 70% of the grain produced is used to feed animals.

Each spike in food prices puts millions more people into hunger.  She said that the evidence so far is that in temperate countries the impact of global warming may not be very extreme but in tropical countries it may cut crop yields by 30-50%. 

Agriculture, including emissions and deforestation accounts for  30-50% of global warming. Kirtana pointed to large scale industrial agriculture and its link with oil - in essence it converts oil into food and the rising  price of food closely matches that of oil. US farms use 5 times more energy to produce a kilo of grain than farmers in Africa. Kirtana gave the example of the food /emissions chain where grain grown in South America is shipped to Europe, fed to animals, which then excrete methane into the atmosphere.

What was needed was 'agricology' where ecological principles are applied to growing food. Rebuilding the soil and organic methods can 'lock' carbon into the soil. Potentially 70% of climate change mitigation, including a reduction in intensive industrial cattle rearing, livestock diversity and reduced meat diet could be achieved through agricultural change. Kirtana pointed out the absurdity of the fact that we exported almost exactly the same quantities of chicken breasts and milk as we import.

Local food growing and more food growing spaces in cities could contribute to a more sustainable agricological agriculture even here in Brent.

Kirtana concluded by saying that these measures were possible and in a way injected a degree of optimism into the discussion. She was at pains to say that she was not advocating vegetarianism or denying people emerging from poverty the right to desire meat, but that an all round reduction in meeting would both help mitigate climate change and also help those in the west  have healthier lives. Research by Oxford University's Health Promotion group of FoE found that eating meat no more than three times a week would save 45,000 lives a year.

In the ensuing discussion Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt spoke about some of the measures that Brent Council had taken and the council's eagerness to do more  at a local level (a local Brent currency like the Brixton Pound was mentioned) and asked for ideas to be sent to the council.. Ken Montague talked about how the year on year rise in food prices since 2007  had created a health crisis for the poor who were no longer able to eat healthily.

Brian Orr of Brent Green Party and the Arctic Methane Emergency Group, drew attention to the seriousness of the global climate crisis and accused politicians of an 'abysmal' failure to rise to the challenge and suggested, with the example for the recent US presidential election,  that they were frightened to reveal to the public the true extent of the threat.

Viv Stein told the audience about the work of Transition Willesden in encouraging local shops,local  food growing including demonstration allotments at Kilburn Station, and harvesting of otherwise unwanted fruit. Lia Colacicco spoke about her work with residents encouraging environmental action not through Facebook or Twitter but by face to face contact and joint work  with friends and neighbours in the local area. Tariq Dar from the Pakistan Community Centre said that they were involved in a joint project with the London Sustainability Exchange. Tim Danby of Marley Walks Residents Association spoke about the positive fact that this meeting was attended by the most diverse audience of any that had been to a climate change in Brent.

The meeting concluded with calls to support the National Demonstration Against Climate Change 'Get fractious' marchon December 1st  LINK which would include the erection of a fracking rig  Downing Street to demonstrate how dependency on oil was bringing about increasingly dangerous and damaging oil extraction methods which would continue to build up the emissions contributing to made-made climate change.

The threads that emerged: work with residents, work with schools, transition, food growing, council action and lobbies of politicians at a national level have the potential to be woven into quite a strong strategy. The December 1st  march, the Schools' Climate Conference and Competition due to take place in  March  2013 and Parliamentary lobby in June seem well placed milestones for the next few months. Another meeting will be held in January 2013 to move things forward.

I think Jeff would have been pleased.

'Never mind the polar bears, what will we eat?' Wednesday - be there!

I will be chairing this meeting on Wednesday. It is all too easy to forget the huge climate change threat facing us when we are simultaneously campaigning on economic and social justice issues. Of course catastrophic  climate change will affect both issues. This is a briefing meeting for campaigners, councillors, voluntary organisations, residents' associations, trades unionists and the general public.

Never mind the polar bears, what will WE eat?

A meeting on the rapidly melting Arctic ice cap and implications for Brent residents will be taking place at the Pakistan Community Centre in Willesden Green on Wednesday 21^st November.

 

The purpose of the meeting is to brief councillors, policy-makers, trade unionists, and community leaders on the seriousness of the situation and its possible consequences for people in Brent. The meeting, ‘Never Mind the Polar Bears, What Will We Eat?’, is being organised by Brent Campaign against Climate Change and Brent Friends of the Earth.

 

The speakers will be: Phil Thornhill, National Co-ordinator of Campaign against Climate Change, who will review the latest scientific evidence of the depletion of Arctic ice and its possible effect on the world’s weather systems; and Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Campaigner in  Land Use, Food and Water Security from Friends of the Earth, who will talk about the vulnerability of the world’s food supply.  They will also answer questions and open a discussion on what further action we should be taking in Brent.  The meeting is being chaired by Tariq Dar, Chairman of the Pakistan Community Centre.

 

Recent reports show that 70% of Arctic sea ice has melted since 1980 [1] and that there will be no Arctic sea ice in the summer months by 2016. This is likely to have a serious impact on world weather patterns, affecting the price of food internationally and increasing the vulnerability of regions of the world already prone to droughts and floods. Some of these regions will be those in which members of the Brent community have family and friends.

 

Ken Montague, Secretary of the Brent Campaign against Climate Change says:

The melting of the Arctic is a wake-up call to all of us about the urgency of tackling climate change while we still can. This meeting will present the latest scientific information and discuss how it will affect us here in Brent and the people we may know in other parts of the world. We believe that the seriousness of the situation means that we have to assist Brent Council to develop a community response, both in terms of measures we can take locally, and by raising our concerns with our representatives in Parliament.

Lia Colacicco, Co-ordinator of Brent Friends of the Earth, and member of Brent Climate Change Steering Group, says:

People may know the ice caps are melting, but believe that if it’s so serious then surely somebody else must be taking care of it. But Governments worldwide don’t think beyond the next election, so no one IS planning for the immense repercussions of drought, flooding and food shortages we face in future years. I hope that this meeting will galvanise Brent residents and councillors to put pressure on those in power.

 

It’s like the Butterfly Effect.  Melting ice affects the Gulf Stream which brings warmth to the UK - and we all saw how our Jet Stream got stuck this summer bringing weeks of rain.  The price of apples and pears has already increased due to the resulting shortage – my pear tree produced a tenth of its usual harvest.

The meeting will take place at 7.30pm on Wednesday 21^st November at the Pakistan Community Centre, Marley Walk, Station Parade, Willesden Green, NW2 4PU (just behind Willesden Green tube station).  This is a free event and all are welcome.

 

Brent Council gets school students involved in climate change battle

New York today

 As Hurricane Sandy lashes the Eastern Coast of the USA and Canada at one level and Year 5 at Wembley Primary take to Twitter to research their half-term homework on severe weather events at another it is appropriate that Brent Council today announces a Climate Change Competition for Brent schools.

I declare an interest here as Chair of Brent Campaign Against Climate Change and because I have had a minor role in organising the Schools Conference on Climate Change that will take place in March 2013.

Brent Council is launching a competition in partnership with the College of North West London and Brent Campaign Against Climate Change for young people to present ideas showing how to help their community improve its understanding of the effects of climate change and how it might be addressed.

Brent Student Climate Change competition is open to anyone aged from 11 to 21 years who lives, works or studies in the borough. It invites young people to submit a piece of work that either raises public awareness of climate change or offers a practical means to lessening or adapting our lives to deal with its effect.

Young people can use any of the following media to present their ideas:

• new media forms including apps for tablets and phones, websites
• music, art, poetry, video, drama or performance
• 3-D models
• poster or technical drawing
• written proposal of 1, 000 words such as a business plan for a small firm.

The winning entry for the competition will receive a £100 voucher and a certificate signed by the Mayor of Brent Councillor Michael Adeyeye, and the five runners-up will receive a letter of commendation also signed by the Mayor. The certificate and letters of commendation will include the name of the entrant's school, college or youth club, who will receive copies for display. The six winning pieces will be displayed in the new Brent Civic Centre and during a schools' conference on climate change in the borough, which is being planned for 20 March 2013.

Councillor James Powney, Lead Member for Environment and Neighbourhood Services, said:

"The competition will help to increase awareness of climate change in Brent. It is excellent that young people have been invited to put forward their suggestions because it is that generation who could be most affected by climate change in the future.

"It also offers schools and youth clubs the opportunity of receiving valuable publicity for their organisations while motivating students whose projects and ideas can form part of their normal coursework. I'm looking forward to seeing the innovative ways the boroughs young people tackle such a current and relevant issue such as raising awareness of adapting and tackling climate change."

Ken Montague, secretary of Brent Campaign against Climate Change, who is coordinating the competition, is available to visit your school or club venue with a Brent councillor to explain the competition. He can be contacted if a school or youth club emails environment@brent.gov.uk .

The deadline for submissions is 13 March 2013, but you must register by 8 February 2013.
Entries will be judged by a panel of representatives from Brent Council, Brent Campaign Against Climate Change, and The College of North West London. For more information about submitting your entry email environment@brent.gov.uk .

Waste and the Wembley Plan - some reservations

As residents of Ealing and Brent in the area around Willesden Junction station fight a planning application for a 'waste to energy' incinerator on the Freightliners Depot site, readers may be interested in Brent Campaign Against Climate Change's submission on the Wembley Plan. This includes references to waste processing. Wembley was of course the site of the 'Wembley Stink' during the Olympics when the stench from rotting organic waste at the Seneca Materials Recycling Facility became a national issue.

Since this response was submitted the Brent Executive have agreed plans for the purchase of a site for a new waste management depot in Brent as part of the four-borough contracts for waste management, recycling, street sweeping and parks maintenance. £6m has been allocated and one wonders if the site will be in the Wembley Plan area.

Brent Campaign Against Climate Change – submission on Wembley Plan

We have limited our comments to the most relevant aspects of the Plan. Omission of comment on other areas neither indicates agreement, nor disagreement, with those proposals.

VISION OBJECTIVES (p13)

• To preserve open spaces for recreation and biodiversity and create new and enhanced open spaces to address deficiencies where possible, but particularly to meet the needs of additional population commensurate with current levels of provision. AGREED
• To increase the amount of public open space (at least 2.4ha within Wembley) and the amount of land with enhanced ecological value. AGREED
• To enhance green and blue infrastructure by tree planting, returning rivers to their more natural courses and mitigating the pollution effects of development. AGREED
• To achieve sustainable development, mitigate & adapt to climate change. AGREED
• To reduce energy demand from current building regulation standards and achieve exemplar low carbon schemes and combined heat and power plants. RESERVATIONS SEE BELOW
• To create a well-connected and accessible location where sustainable modes of travel are prioritised and modal share of car trips to Wembley is reduced from 37% towards 25%. AGREED AS A START BUT NEED TIMELINES FOR MORE AMBITIOUS TARGET
• To promote access by public transport, bicycle or on foot and reduce car parking standards because of Wembley’s relative accessibility AGREED

Wembley Area Action Plan - Preferred Options 13

Business Industry and Waste

1. We are in favour of strict controls on waste management and processing sites in the entire area, rather than the limited area proposed. We would also favour relocation where that is possible. The events over the summer regarding the Seneca MRF and the ‘Wembley stink’ should serve as a warning for the future.  The Neasden/Wembley area already suffers from severe air pollution problems with school pupils particularly at risk because of the impact of air pollution on their smaller lungs. Chalkhill Primary, St Margaret Clitherow Primary, Northview Primary, Oakington Manor Primary and the proposed new Wembley Stadium Primary in Fulton Road are all in the vicinity. Older people also suffer disproportionately from respiratory problems.

2. We propose the creation of a Green Enterprise zone in the area with a concerted effort by Brent Council, in conjunction with the College of North West London, to bring green training, apprenticeship and jobs into the area. At present aside from the building jobs associated with regeneration there is an over dependence on the creation of jobs in retail and leisure. Green jobs would make a significant contribution to the upskilling of the Brent labour force.

Response to Climate Change

1. We welcome the inclusion of a response to Climate Change in the report and note this statement from the Wembley Plan:

10.6 Climate change will have a significant impact on the economic, social and environmental well being of Wembley. Hotter summers will have a bigger impact in Wembley because of the predominance of concrete and buildings. Heat waves will mean more people are likely to suffer from illnesses and could also lead to damage to roads, railways and buildings. Heavy thunderstorms and intense winter downpours will become more common, and will lead to flash flooding where the drainage system cannot cope with the increased rainfall. It is therefore crucial that future development in Wembley addresses these impacts and limits its contribution to climate change by minimising carbon emissions.

10.7 Specific issues for Wembley include the legacy of industrial use in the area which led to a lack of green and ‘cool’ spaces. Much of Wembley is deficient in open space and there are few mature trees. Land adjacent to the Wealdstone Brook is most at risk of flooding, although much of Wembley is also prone to surface water flooding. In addition, the majority of the sewer network in the Wembley area is undersized.

2.       We welcome the recognition of the importance of this issue and that fact that it is being addressed in detail by the Council. We welcome the proposals on naturalising of the Wealdstone Brook, flood plain storage, tree planting, green roofs and creation of new parks are all welcomed as  responses to this situation.

Climate Change Mitigation

1.       Under this heading the Council make a number of proposals for Decentralised  (CHP) Combined Heat and Power facilities and for Energy from Waste over which we have reservations.

2.       The  reservations below regarding CHP are pertinent: and should inform the Council’s plans: (From  www.arthurshumway.smith.com)

 "Combined Heat and Power" (CHP) or "cogeneration" systems for producing both heat and electric power are generally mature and really can reduce emissions of CO2 compared to other fossil-fuel technologies. But there are two problems with typical discussion of CHP:

(1) Fossil-fuel-based CHP cannot be a long-term solution on climate or energy because they still burn fossil fuels, and therefore still emit a lot of CO2. Reducing that by 20% or even 50% is not enough; we need to take steps that over the next 30-40 years will bring fossil CO2 emissions close to 0.

(2) Efficiency claims for CHP systems are frequently greatly overstated. Heat is lower-quality energy than electricity, and only at high temperatures does it become close to comparable. Efficiency claims for CHP systems that use high-temperature heat are not so far off, but CHP systems that make use of low-temperature waste heat have much lower thermodynamic efficiencies than usually claimed.

The inflated efficiency claims often lead to assertions that CHP is the "largest" or one of the largest potential solutions. But the number of applications that require high-temperature heat where CHP efficiency really is quite high are limited. And the modest efficiency gains with low-temperature waste heat use, which could be much more widely applied, don't lead to very much improvement in overall energy use. The combining of heat and power production in CHP systems can reduce our fossil CO2 emissions by a few percent, but much more than that is needed in coming decades.

3. The Wembley  Plan (WEM 33) supports Energy from Waste and again we have reservations.

3.i The first issue is that the emphasis should be on the reduction of waste at source in manufacturing,  then re-use and recycling. There is a danger that in using residual waste as fuel in order to reduce landfill, the incentive to reduce waste is removed. Furthermore, dependence on waste as fuel to generate heat and power, can lead to the need to import fuel in order to keep the processes going. The NABU Study (2010) in Germany illustrates this:

The study shows that in 2010, somewhat less domestic waste will be produced in Germany than at present.. This is due to a decline in the population and a slight increase in recycling. Overcapacities with incinerators are already occurring. This applies to combustible material used in energy from waste plants as well as conventional incineration   

At this point in time, 2 million   more tonnes  of waste are imported into Germany than exported. This is equivalent to a goods train 1000 km in length. Germany is therefore a net importer of waste

We would not want Brent to become an importer of waste in order to fuel our EfW plants.

3.ii  Secondly, the Plan states ‘There are a number of new and emerging technologies that are able to produce energy from waste without direct combustion’ . Our reservation on this is that in some technologies the initial stages do not involve combustion but further stages involve, for example, gases being burned off..  We cannot pretend to be expert on these issues but urge that complete transparency, independent expert advice (rather than assurances from the companies involved) and public debate must take place before any such technologies are employed.

3.ii In investigating the detrimental impact on human health the Council must take into account the concerns that exist over nanoparticles  produced in the incineration process and the emerging science discipline of nanopathology that studies the impact of such particles on the human body.

Food Growing

1.       We welcome the proposal to include food growing areas in new development (WEM 38) and the use of temporary vacant spaces. However we do not agree to the claim that restricted space means that such spaces cannot be provided in any new schools in the area. Raised beds do not take up much space and there are many imaginative solutions involving containers, window boxes, growing walls etc that could be incorporated into new build. In addition the growing spaces in existing schools in the area show what can be done. Provision of demonstration food growing areas in newly created parks would be useful as well as support for finding food growing spaces alongside the Chiltern/Metropolitan and Jubilee  railway lines.

2.       Food growing in schools raises awareness of the children about the impact of climate change and encourages healthy eating and a long term interest in gardening. It links with the curriculum and awards such as Healthy School and Eco School. The Council should be vigorously supporting it and making every effort to find food growing space for children.

3.    The Metropolitan Housing Trust is already working on these issues on the Chalkhill Estate with residents and are seeking additional growing spaces on the estate Involvement of other housing providers should be sought.