Friends of Carbon Copy: Ashden

Ashden is a charity that supports climate innovation with an impact that extends from grassroots to global action. For two decades, the Ashden Awards have accelerated some of the most exciting climate innovators in the UK and in developing countries, working with them to scale up their impact and inspire others. The Ashden Awards are a keystone initiative that helps Ashden power up other transformative climate solutions around the country and around the world, from bold green policies to more liveable cities.

Carbon Copy is pleased to be working on local climate action in the UK alongside Ashden. Last month, Ashden and other organisations published A blueprint: Accelerating local climate action and a green recovery. This blueprint for councils was produced by a coalition of local authority organisations, environmental NGOs and academic institutions, with the backing of 100 local councils. Encouragingly, the priority action areas identified for local authorities would reinforce and amplify many of the community-led initiatives shared on Carbon Copy.

The timing of the blueprint was important as it coincided with the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC’s) formal advice to the UK government on reducing carbon emissions during the Sixth Carbon Budget. These Carbon Budgets are an integral part of the Climate Change Act, ensuring that strong progress is made towards achieving the UK’s 2050 emissions reduction target.

The CCC’s most recent advice is all the more significant as it recognises that “top-down policies go some way to delivering change but can achieve a far greater impact if they are focused through local knowledge and networks.” This need for, and reliance on, local leadership in accelerating climate action is much greater now that the previous national UK target of an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 has been brought forward nearly fifteen years to 2035.

Ashden’s ongoing work on climate solutions and its collaboration in the recently produced blueprint build momentum behind net zero and provides a framework for aligning climate action at local government level with the CCC’s pathways for the UK. At the same time, the low-carbon initiatives shared by people on Carbon Copy aim to accelerate collective, grassroots learning and community engagement. We need both. As the saying goes, to change everything we need everyone.