Climate change action plan 2021-23

FOREWORD BY THE
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
The Green Economy and Climate Change have
never been more important for Northumberland.
This Climate Change Action Plan sets out the actions
that the Council will take to help attract green
investment into the county and generate more green
jobs as part of achieving our target to create a netzero
Northumberland by 2030.
Northumberland County Council remains committed
to achieving this target, driven by a strategic intent to
attract green investment into the county, grow the
green economy, create new jobs, and achieve the
climate change target.
This Action Plan focuses on the priorities for the next
two years (2021, 2022) alongside the work required to
develop the strategies and deliver the projects for
2023. Fundamental to the delivery of this Action Plan
will be a county wide change in mindset and
behaviours, which will only be possible through
effective and far reaching engagement and
partnerships with residents, communities, businesses,
visitors and central government.
In order to achieve net-zero, 709.1 ktCO 2
will need to
be removed from Northumberland’s annual CO 2
emissions by 2030. Achieving this through the
scenarios modelled in this plan will require an inward
investment into the county of around £1.6bn over the
next nine years.
This level of investment could create up to 11,000
local green jobs 1 .
We will proactively work with national government,
our strategic partners, local and national businesses
as well as the financial services sector to access
relevant funding opportunities and attract green
investment partners.
This Climate Change Action Plan includes a focus on
both enabling activities (Policy, Engagement and
Partnerships) and delivery activities Heating; Transport;
Renewable Energy Generation; Sequestration; Waste
Reduction). Each of these priority action areas have a
set of key targets detailed in this plan.
This is a huge amount of work, but far more will need
to happen in order to meet our goal of a carbon neutral
county. This plan will be revisited on an annual basis
in order to track our progress. We will add detail to the
modelled routes to net-zero as funding opportunities
are identified and won, projects come to fruition and
new opportunities emerge.
Daljit Lally OBE
Chief Executive of Northumberland County Council
1
Throughout this Action Plan, we have calculated the potential jobs created or supported by assuming 10-20%
of capital expenditure is human resource with an average annual salary of £20,000 - £30,000. This is in line
with the UK National Accounts Blue Book and our experience of delivering capital projects.
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Climate Change Action Plan 2021-23