Climate Change annual progress
Each year a climate change annual report is published to show the progress that has been made across the many programmes and projects underway across the County Council, in line with the Climate Change Strategy, to reduce carbon emissions and build resilience to climate change for the wider Hampshire area, with our partners and communities.
Climate Change Action Plan 2020-2025
The climate change Action Plan shows the activity being undertaken by the County Council to reduce emissions and build resilience. It includes all strategic priority areas set out in the Climate Change Strategy including transport, waste and the natural environment.
Read our action planFramework of strategic programmes
The framework of strategic programmes has been designed to deliver outcomes to reach our climate change targets in 2050. Here we show our approach to tackling the main sources of emissions and adapting to climate change across key sectors, including transport, energy generation, and the natural environment.
See our strategic frameworkHampshire’s carbon emissions
Hampshire County Council’s climate change mitigation target is for the Hampshire area to be carbon neutral by 2050. To measure progress towards this target, Hampshire’s carbon emissions are tracked and reported annually.
Learn moreProgress updates
Previous climate change annual progress reports
Annual progress 2022-23
Annual progress 2021-22
Annual progress 2020-21
Climate change annual report 2020-21
Progress on Key Priority Areas
See the highlights from the Programmes and Action Plan and that are reducing carbon emissions and building resilience to climate change across Hampshire.
Hampshire County Council's Climate Change Response - March 2021
Hampshire County Council declared a Climate Emergency in 2019 and very soon after set two targets for the whole of the Hampshire area.
- To become carbon neutral by 2050
- To be resilient to a two degree rise in temperature.
It is important to understand both targets and why the Council chose them.
The carbon neutral target is purposefully aligned to the UK National Government's 2050 target. This is important as the County Council only has influence (not control) over approximately 30% of the emissions in the Hampshire area and no influence or control over the remaining 70%. It is therefore essential that National Government implement policies and actions that will enable Hampshire to meet its targets. These will mainly fall within areas such as decarbonising heat and power (i.e., making the energy we use zero carbon or carbon neutral).
On 9 December 2020, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) released a report (6th Carbon Budget), which still supported 2050 as the most realistic date by which the UK could become net zero. The County Council's 2050 target is therefore the most credible target it could set and actually deliver on.
Once we set our targets it was vital that we quickly set out how we would deliver them. In 2020, the Council published not only a Strategy but two very comprehensive plans (Action Plan and Strategic Framework) that clearly sets out what we are going to do to meet our targets. Having a clear roadmap to our end goal is very important and we made use of experts in the Carbon Trust to help us develop that, so it was based on facts and data, making the most of the powers and influence the Council has.
Everything we have published has a timeline to 2025. This is because we know that things can change dramatically in a short time, and we want to be agile enough to take advantage of those changes and opportunities, which may also include reviewing our targets if there is a possibility that they can be brought forward.
The resilience target is also very important because we are already experiencing the sometimes devastating impacts of climate change in Hampshire, for example in flooding events and heat waves. The County Council is one of very few Councils to set a target for resilience, but we know that it is an absolutely critical part of our role to make sure that not only can we continue to deliver our vital services to our residents but that we also make sure that our environment, infrastructure and communities are prepared for and where possible protected from the impacts of current and future climate change.
The biggest impact the County Council can have on tackling climate change in Hampshire lies with the policies and strategies we create and implement within the Hampshire area. For example, our Local Transport Plan has the power to deliver significant reductions in carbon emissions from transport. For this reason, we have focused much of our attention on ensuring that our policies and strategies are aligned to and prioritise our climate change targets. This has already begun to happen across the Council where major policies and strategies such as the Local Transport Plan, Economic Recovery, Flood and Water Management, Minerals and Waste are all being reviewed to place climate change at the core.
We have also introduced climate change assessments into our decision-making processes that will require all our projects/initiatives/policies to show how they are taking account of climate change, which in turn will help to embed climate change into everything we do across the organisation.
On the ground action is also critical, and we are prioritising working with our residents to support them to take action individually or as part of their communities. We know that this work is vital, and as the CCC 6th Carbon Budget Report highlighted, over 50% of the necessary carbon emissions reductions will require some level of behaviour change from everyone. We also know that nearly 24% of Hampshire’s total carbon emissions come from domestic energy, and energy bills are a significant outgoing for most households. In light of all this the County Council launched four community projects in 2020 that together create a joined-up programme of activity around residents and communities/community groups that focus on reducing emissions and building resilience at the very individual or community level. We have also set up an Expert Forum made up of key community groups that have a key role in climate change in Hampshire. This Forum will advise and challenge the County Council on its approach by making sure that we take into account the views of the residents and communities they represent. The Forum members will also help to spread awareness and get involved in delivering actions to help meet the targets for Hampshire.
This short piece is only a very small snapshot of what the Council is doing to tackle climate change. We also produced a short video to showcase some of the projects that we are delivering to help bring the significant extent of work we are doing to life.
There is so much more that we can talk about so we have created our dedicated climate change website which provides a huge amount of information on what we are doing and it will continue to be updated to make sure that it is the one place to go to find out what is happening.
