I started Climate Emergency UK back in 2019 when I was a City Councillor for Lancaster. In December 2018 the first councils in the UK started declaring a climate emergency with council motions, and I thought, if 10 councils in the UK can do this, why not every council. In order to do this, declaring a climate emergency needed to be seen as mainstream and sensible, something with cross-party consensus, rather than a political decision. 

To help this, I set up Climate Emergency UK as a website to record and disseminate all climate emergency declarations, thereby encouraging other councils to do the same. Useful resources, advice, and contacts were provided on the website for councillors and residents wishing to get their council to declare an emergency, as well as for councils wanting to deliver on a declaration. 

In Lancaster, I organised a cross party ‘Climate Emergency’ Conference at Lancaster Town Hall in March 2019 with inspirational speakers including Paul Allen from the Centre for Alternative Technology, (now Dame) Natalie Bennett, Sam Hunter-Jones from Client Earth and many others to galvanise action locally.

These climate emergency declarations were happening UK-wide, and people wanted to meet and learn from each other, but then COVID hit. So, with the help of Susanna Dart and Alison Cahn, I organised the UK’s first climate emergency conference later in 2020, creating an online forum and network through which examples of best practice could be shared.

In the first year of this website during 2020, managed by the dedication of some very overworked volunteers, mySociety approached me. They wanted to help to make the data on all these councils clearer and more manageable. Through partnering with mySociety and members of the Blueprint Coalition, Climate Emergency UK grew and was able to undertake proactive work, beyond chasing climate emergency statements.

With the help of Susanna, Grace and Isaac (some of our first staff members!), we wrote the Climate Action Plan Checklist, a detailed guide for what councils should include in a strong climate action plan – plans that were being created following councils’ climate emergency declarations. From this point onwards, more and more people were starting to approach Climate Emergency UK to do further work, such as the Scorecards. 

I tell this story because it shows the true grassroots, and primarily volunteer-led foundation of CE UK. Alongside the rise of Extinction Rebellion and their local groups who were often instrumental in campaigning for their councils to declare a climate emergency, the wave of council climate action in 2019-20 was led by volunteers and grassroots organisations, not political parties, charities or business. Now that is impressive.

What Climate Emergency UK has achieved is beyond anything I expected. Through our peer-learning and support, data collection and then the Plan and Action Scorecards, I think CE UK has done an incredible job to keep climate on the agenda for local government. More impressively we have managed to do this whilst councils struggled to support residents through COVID and the cost of living crisis. And this isn’t me singing my own praises, since late 2020 the staff at Climate Emergency UK have created CE UK into what it is today. I merely laid down some virtual bricks and mortar with a website, connections in the sector and a small amount of funding.

Yet we can’t rely on volunteers to secure the mitigation and adaptation changes we need to face the nature and climate emergency in our communities. At a local level, councils can do a lot. What councils do at a local level can also affect national changes too, whilst achieving more immediate changes for residents, such as warmer homes, improving air quality and reducing the dangers and costs posed by rising temperatures and reduced biodiversity. 

Over the last five years it has been incredible to see councillors up and down the country taking climate action into their own hands. There are also incredible council staff members that have worked above and beyond to get their council and communities to understand the real impacts the climate emergency is already having on them, and what councils can do within their powers and influence to adapt and change. To date, almost 9 out of 10 councils in the UK have declared a climate emergency, with most of these having Climate Action Plans that they are delivering. 

As I step away from the weird and wonderful world of local government, I am in awe at the relatively fast changes we have seen in the last five years for climate action. But this still isn’t enough. 

A Labour government is a welcomed change, but Labour-run councils have also been those to approve airport expansion, new road building and refusing to divest their pensions from fossil fuels. So it is more important than ever that councils are continued to be held to account on their journey towards net-zero. Climate Emergency UK is the only organisation that monitors all UK councils climate action, and as a result, must continue to play this crucial role. 

I never started CE UK with the intention of it existing as an organisation with four staff members and real funding. I started this organisation to do what I could for the climate emergency. As councils and residents, I hope, take further and faster action against the climate and ecological emergencies that we are living through, CE UK must continue to measure, assess and encourage this action.

Kevin Frea
Find out more about what Kevin is up to now at: https://kevins.art/