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Event Meeting Notice

May 2021 Meeting — Barnet Climate Plan Workshop

Outline map of Barnet with the words "A climate plan for Barnet, Sunday 16th May 2 to 5 pm"

Update 24 May: reports and slides are gradually being assembled on the Barnet Climate Plan page.

Barnet Climate Action Group will be hosting an online workshop from 2pm to 5pm on the afternoon of Sunday 16 May 2021 to discuss citizen, business and council climate action needed in the London Borough of Barnet to respond to the Climate Emergency.

The current plan is to have an introductory session all together followed by two breakout sessions and a final plenary.

In the first breakout session, we will break up into two groups to discuss in parallel:

  • Buildings
    • Retrofitting existing buildings
    • Domestic and non-domestic buildings
    • Energy efficiency
    • Renewable heat and renewable power
  • Waste and Consumption
    • Waste reduction, food waste and recycling
    • Plastics
    • Circular economy
    • Spending in a climate friendly way
    • Food: meat, dairy, plant-based, vegan, vegetarian

You may join whichever group you wish.

In the second session we will discuss, again in parallel:

  • Transport
    • Reducing car use and switching to electric vehicles
    • Public transport
    • Walking and cycling
    • Deliveries
  • Nature
    • Green spaces
    • Trees
    • Rewilding
    • Biodiversity
    • Flood prevention using nature

If there is something not mentioned that we ought to cover, let us know and we will add it to one of these lists. When it is not obvious, topics will be assigned to these in an arbitrary way. For example industrial emissions will be discussed under Buildings, as a lot of industry in the borough consists of offices.

We have allocated quite a long time so everyone gets a chance to have their say. If you can’t spare that much time, feel free to attend just part of the workshop.

We are hoping to assemble some suggested background reading here. As a start:

Please book via the Eventbrite page at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-climate-plan-for-barnet-tickets-152394424827 . The Zoom link will be sent to those people who have registered. There are also more details of the timetable on that page.

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April 2021 Meeting — Planning for a Barnet Climate Plan

Ahead of Barnet Climate Action Group’s forthcoming workshop (Sunday 16 May), this month’s BCAG meeting will be a planning event for the workshop, asking attendees for their thoughts on the key issues for the borough that need to be examined to input into a future Barnet Climate Plan.

We would really value your thoughts on how we can get the best out of our May workshop – so look forward to seeing you on Thursday 22 April 2021 at 6.30pm.

The Zoom link for the 22nd April meeting has been sent round to the mailing list. If you are new and would like to join the mailing list, please send an email to the webmaster at the address at the end of the page — sorry it’s an image to reduce spam.

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Event Meeting

March 2021 Meeting — Net Zero Finchley: A Thought Experiment

Thursday, March 18, 2021
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM online

Please register on Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/net-zero-finchley-a-thought-experiment-tickets-146320497547.

It is estimated 80% of buildings in our cities today will still be here in 2050. How could one part of LB Barnet – Finchley – go Net Zero?

The Government has set a Net Zero CO2 emissions target for 2050. Retrofitting UK’s 27 million homes and millions of non-domestic buildings remains one of the biggest challenges to achieve Net Zero. It is estimated that 80% of the buildings in our cities today that still be here in 2050, therefore efforts to reduce emissions must primarily focus on existing stock. But how can this such wide scale retrofit be undertaken? How much of an inconvenience will it prove to be to households? What technologies do we need to deploy to decarbonise? What buildings should be tackled first? What are the cost implications?

Taking one part of Barnet as a ‘thought experiment’ – around the main high streets of Finchley – what would be required to retrofit buildings in this area such that they would be fit for a Net Zero future? Please come along and contribute your thoughts!

This event will be held online: please register on Eventbrite using the link above.

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Event Meeting Notice

January 2021 Meeting — 2021: Climate Talks – Local Actions

Tuesday, January 12, 2021
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM online

Please register on Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-climate-talks-local-actions-tickets-133987631613.

Despite the pandemic, climate and energy headlines dominate the news. We look at the pathway to COP26 and the role of local actors.

In November 2021 the UK will host the international climate negotiations for the first time. The UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) 26 will be held in Glasgow from November 1-12. Details of the event are set out on the official conference webpage at ukCOP26.org

Leading up to the COP, the Government will be making some significant decisions on the future of energy policy in the UK. Recent weeks have seen the publication of the Energy White Paper and the Committee on Climate Change’s advice to Government on the Sixth Carbon Budget (which covers the years 2033 – 2037). The coming year will see a number of new strategies published which will impact on the way we live our lives. From heating our homes (Heat and Buildings Strategy), to the way we travel (a Transport Decarbonisation Plan), to our green spaces (a Trees Strategy) and even what we eat (a National Food Strategy).

BCAG’s January 2021 meeting will highlight some of the key discussions and decisions leading to the COP event, and importantly, how new policy outputs from Government will work their way into local decision-making – into our homes and neighbourhoods – and what opportunities we have to influence these decisions.

We are delighted to have as a guest speaker for this event Kirsty Hamilton. Kirsty has three decades of international experience in tackling and leading efforts on climate change and accelerating the energy transition and has been an Observer in the UNFCCC process since the early 1990s. She is currently seconded in to advise the COP26 Energy Transition team on private investment and ‘investment confidence’ for governments.

Since returning to the UK in early 2000s she has focused on bridging between leading energy finance practitioners and senior policy counterparts on clean energy outcomes originally setting up an initiative through an affiliation with Chatham House in 2004. She went on to establish the Low Carbon Finance Group (2010-2015), founded by senior financiers, heading its factual policy engagement throughout the electricity market reform process. Advisory work has included Specialist Advisor to a UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Financing Energy Infrastructure and a senior policy advisor to a leading energy storage investor. Kirsty’s ‘Finance Guide for Policymakers’ BNEF, Chatham House, UNEP-FS can be downloaded here.

Zoom link: to be provided via registration.

This event will be held online: please register on Eventbrite using the link above.

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Event Meeting Notice

November 2020 Meeting — Electric Vehicles in London’s suburbs

Thursday, November 19, 2020
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM online

Please register on Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/evs-and-outer-london-decarbonising-transport-in-the-suburbs-tickets-128651687661.

How can we successful implement Electric Vehicle (EV) strategies in London’s suburbs?

Part of London Climate Action Week https://www.londonclimateactionweek.org/

14- 20 November 2020 #LCAW2020 #EVsOuterLondon

As London boroughs begin to implement actions to accelerate the take up of electric vehicles in their climate emergency plans – join us to explore what key issues challenges and opportunities will London’s outer boroughs face

London is seeing a slow but steady shift to the electrification of transport. The past year has seen more than 1,000 new charge points installed at petrol stations, in town centres and retrofitted into street lighting columns. More than 2,000 electric black cabs are now on London’s streets and Transport for London runs Europe’s largest electric bus fleet.

While mode shift is key to cleaning London’s air, reducing congestion, vehicle related injuries and greenhouse gas emissions, there will ultimately still be some essential vehicles on the road. These vehicles need to be zero emission. Electric vehicles in particular, will play a key role in London’s green recovery post-pandemic. They produce zero tailpipe emissions, are quiet and has and can create new jobs in battery manufacturing across the UK.

London is some way ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to charging infrastructure, with 28.8 charging points per 100 electric cars (compared to the national average of 12.5). Wandsworth is the London borough with the highest availability of chargers, with 34 per 100 electric vehicles however Outer London boroughs have the fewest charging points, with Harrow having the least with just 14. This works out as 1.7 per 100 electric vehicles. However, more of Outer London’s households have off-street parking, and home charging should be a more viable option. Also only 40 per cent of inner London households having access to a car, compared to 70 per cent in Outer London.

On average, car owners drive slightly more than six kilometres on a typical day, but those living in Outer London travel, on average, nearly 2km further per day (close to 7km) than those from inner London (5km per day).

More information on TfL and EVs

London EV Infrastructure Delivery Plan (PDF)

DfT Decarbonising transport: setting the challenge

This event will be held online: please register on Eventbrite using the link above.

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Event Meeting Notice

October 2020 Meeting — Barnet’s Waste Policies

A presentation and discussion around London Borough of Barnet’s existing and future waste policies

Thursday, October 15, 2020 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM online

October’s BCAG meeting will explore opportunities to reduce the environmental and climate impacts of waste streams in the London Borough of Barnet, including waste avoidance and minimisation, re-use, recycling, composting and the use of waste streams to generate energy.

**A full agenda will be available shortly. Following registration a zoom link will be forwarded nearer the time of the event.**

Please register on Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/barnet-climate-action-group-barnets-future-waste-tickets-123674023333.

A list of policies and information notes from Barnet Council on their waste programmes follows below.

We hope to see you on the night!

Barnet is one of seven London local authorities making up the North London Waste Authority (NLWA).

Barnet council’s waste policies are set out in this 2018 information note: Barnet Council Household recycling and waste policies

Further information is provided in the Barnet Reduction and Recycling Plan (September 2019)

The council’s key programmes and progress against them is set out in Barnet’s Environment Delivery Plan (published in March 2020) – the previous year’s report can be seen here.

Charging for garden waste collections (a report in this policy can be seen in the following Environment Committee paper from January 2020)

Barnet webpages also exist for the following:

Barnet Council suspended brown bin food waste services in November 2018

A note on reducing food waste

Waste collection in flats

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Blog

Reducing carbon emissions from Barnet’s homes

by Syed Ahmed

A great blog by housing energy efficiency specialists Parity Projects on the workforce required to see homes on a zero carbon pathway – and the retrofit tasks and skills required to upgrade homes. As a reminder of the challenge just in Barnet – never mind the UK – there are 160,000 homes in the borough. The latest data shows that through the Mayor’s energy efficiency scheme have supported the retrofit of exactly 200 homes in the borough since 2016 (see data here). The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) programme is the Government’s main household energy efficiency programme. The latest data published by the Department of Business Energy and Industry (BEIS) shows that just over 5,000 homes received an energy efficiency improvement since this new phase of the scheme began operation in 2015. (See BEIS statistics for March 2020 here – tab 4.4 of the spreadsheet there).

So – over the past five years or so, being generous, some 5,500 homes in Barnet have had some form of energy efficiency improvements installed through a targeted programme. In addition – approximately 1.6m boilers are replaced every year across the UK. Barnet’s likely share of this would be about 10,000 or so per year – 50,000 over the past five years – which would all have improved the energy efficiency of homes.

Whilst this level of activity is to be welcomed, none of the work currently being undertaken in existing homes achieves anything near the zero carbon standard needed to fully address the climate emergency. Much deeper retrofits are required, and the scale of action needs to be significantly increased if we are to reduce emissions from the domestic sector across Barnet and all other parts of the UK.

Prioritising energy efficiency in Barnet’s homes will boost opportunities for local building services companies, insulation firms, plumbers and other associated trades. These are exactly the SMEs currently being hammered during the lockdown. Boosting energy efficiency will be good for Barnet’s homes, for tackling fuel poverty, for resident’s health and supporting local businesses and employment.

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Blog

Post -Covid 19: What Will Be The New Normal?

by Tony Sarchet

A crisis as serious as the current pandemic has put normal life on hold. At the same time, it raises certain concerns about exactly what kind of normal life we should be hoping to return to once the crisis has passed. A lower carbon one would be nice.

Here are a few questions that have occurred to me, prompted by the changes we have all been living through:

Now that we’ve all been forced to get used to conducting meetings from home using platforms such as Zoom, will companies in future enthusiastically revert to spending large sums of money sending their employees across the country, continent or world to check into expensive hotels in order to transact business? Or will some proportion of them decide to forego the jet lag, the travel time and the expenditure? What will this mean for projected future airline capacity? Will the money these airlines are already pleading the government to bail them out with turn out to be money well-spent?

And now that companies have been forced to make arrangements for many of their employees to work from home, how many of them may occasionally prefer not to have to undergo the crowded and stressful daily commute? Will this have an impact on future passenger numbers?

And now that many smaller companies which previously supplied produce exclusively to restaurants and cafes have started offering home deliveries of fresh fruit and vegetables of impressively good quality, how much of a chunk of the big supermarkets’ consumer business might they retain? And wouldn’t this be good for both growers and wholesalers, and maybe even help to reduce food miles?

The new normal seems to be a place where there is such a thing as society, where people in medicine and the caring professions are regarded as heroes. I wonder what else will be discovered – or rediscovered?

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Event Meeting Report

Report on meeting with Alex Gilbert

12th February 2020, 6.30pm, St Mary’s Church, Hendon Lane N3 1TR

NOTES
Present: 27

Welcome By Philip Davison and reading of poem – “The meaning of existence” by Les Murray.

Syed Ahmed gave an update on Barnet Climate Action Group (BCAG)
We agreed to link ourselves to the Friends of the Earth Climate Groups which will give us access to information and resources
Charles Wicksteed had offered to build a BCAG website. This now exists in skeleton form. It can be found at barnetclimate.org.uk. Claire Martin is happy to run @barnetclimate twitter. [Update: this page used to say “Actually @B_C_A_G”, the old name, but now it is indeed @BarnetClimate (Ed)]
Syed Ahmed, Jeffrey Newman and Philip Davison met with the Barnet Director of Environment, Geoff Mee, Adam Driscoll and Robert at the council offices in Colindale. There is a desire to actively promote dialogue. The climate message needs better coordination. There is an issue of politics in this borough (!). It was acknowledged that information for businesses and residents was hard to find on the website. GM and Barnet Environment are taking these matters seriously.
Letter to Theresa Villiers – a work in progress with Green Christians Barnet.

Presentation: The Future of Transport and Energy in London, Alex Gilbert

Alex is an investor and advisor and focuses on opportunities within Clean Technology, Future Infrastructure and the Energy Transition.

Alex acts as an independent ‘Green Infrastructure’ investor and advisor, focusing on: the ‘energy transformation’; clean-tech investment; and the financing of smart, low carbon, sustainable cities.

He is currently curating, commercialising and delivering the energy projects that will assist in the transformation of TfL; London’s largest and most significant energy user.

The context – increase in powers of Local Authorities and cities with decline at national level. The direction is the rise of the city state. London has notable cohesion.
TFL – working for innovative integrated infrastructure. TFL is a transport authority but much more beside. It has power and influence to make an impact on the city greater than similar organisations in other cities eg building 10,000 homes – the most active housebuilder in London – operating 17 modes of transport. With integration it can achieve as low carbon as possible. There is need to support SMEs, local enterprises and logisitics – 500million packages come into London.
What is the future of the city? More congestion, more deliveries and returns. There is a need to join up freight fleet organisation corporate sellers, streets and modes of transport.
The way we order is important – bulk buy, local drop offs.
Target is to have 10,000 banks of lockers impacting both the environment and community.

Q – next day delivery – we are used to it but is it necessary?

Transport and energy.
Commercial development: TFL has some 6,000 acres
Waste heat capture: fuel poverty is a big issue, along with the movement to low carbon homes. Working on capturing heat from the tube both to get it out of the underground system and also use it to heat homes
Renewables wherever possible – using rooftops for solar. Feasibility of trackside solar?
Electric vehicles: charge point hubs.2040 mayor strategy is 80% journeys not by car. Demise of the car in the inner city? TFL to lead on building hubs. Infrastructure not like functional patrol stations and not piecemeal development but rather strategic placing.
Electrification is essential – buses 2030 and zero carbon rail.

Q – is proposal to increase air quality in the tube? Yes! Air quality is a big issue. Problem is cleaning stations and old trains and tunnels. We are though not in the tube for that long. Looking at sucking particulates out of the air. Ultimately new trains.
Q – local transport issue West London Orbital railway (Cricklewood to Ealing) The tracks are already there
Q – Electric Vehicle chargers in Barnet, TFL thoughts.
How do we drive down car ownership and what will replace it? TFL talks to all boroughs. There are different types of charging, slow (home), fast and rapid (50KW+). Rapid charging is closer to filling with petrol.
TFL concentrate on those who have to drive – taxis and fleets – public will be less than 1/3. Co-locate with bus hubs, elockers and ebikes. There is a danger of EV congestion as ULEZ expands. Aim is to decrease use of cars.
TFL housing developments are all car free.
Q – terrace houses parking and charging. Need to rethink future of fuel. Need to provide a service – public charging facility.. Possibility of shared taxi-type transport. With latest technology pick up on demand. Increase in charging points means increase in electricity supply – is that all renewables?. City planning – private hire taxi option with car share and ride share. In Netherlands developments have 30 flats with 4 shared cars.
Hubs with top quality facilities, possibly local solar. Offer many opportunities to charge and dynamic pricing eg solar in middle of day for free.
Pressures in grid are huge. Decarbonising electricity required – still using fossil fuels.. Essential national question – keep decarbonising the grid.
Q – e-cargo bikes: TFL has a freight strategy stepping down ultimately to cargo bikes for the last mile (the most expensive part of the system)
Q – storms and resilience plans of TFL and flood prevention. There is team focusing on climate change, adaptation & mitigation. Also house building.
Q – cool tubes? Adaption to climate change challenge also an opportunity eg waste heat.
Q – phone charging lockers at Victoria station. Revenue £100K per year yet got rid of…terror threat!
Nov 29 5.035million journeys a record.
Heat – old stock. Need for deep tube upgrade, Northern line is deepest tube in world.
Q – orbital route. Is it necessary?
Realism necessary. Possibilty of trams in outer boroughs
Local transport and get rid of short journeys across London
DLR change in communities astonishing
Opportunities new communities city energy etc

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Event Meeting Notice

March 2020 Meeting — Clara Bagenal George CANCELLED

Due to Covid-19, this meeting has been cancelled

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 18 March 2020 7-8.30pm at a NEW VENUE – the Older Women’s Cohousing project in High Barnet. [PLEASE NOTE THIS IS ON A DIFFERENT DAY TO THAT PREVIOUSLY ADVERTISED]

We are delighted to have Clara Bagenal George of the London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI) present to us on the ‘Climate Impact of New Buildings in London’.

Clara was instrumental in establishing LETI which is a network of over 1000 built environment professionals that are working together to put London on the path to a zero carbon future. The voluntary group is made up of developers, engineers, housing associations, architects, planners, academics, sustainability professionals, contractors and facilities managers. More on Clara and LETI’s work can be found here – https://www.leti.london/

Following Clara’s presentation there will be a Q&A session as well as an update on BCAG’s forward work programme.

We look forward to seeing you there!

DIRECTIONS TO VENUE:

Directions to Older Women’s Co-Housing

It’s a 10 minute walk from High Barnet tube station. Stay on the right hand pavement & walk up the hill to Barnet High St.

Turn left into Union St, just past Boots on the corner. 5b is on the left about 30 metres up.

You can register on Eventbrite to let us know that you are coming, or just turn up on the night.

Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/barnet-climate-action-group-the-climate-impact-of-new-buildings-in-london-tickets-99184436319