Climate Change Summit

The City Region Climate Change and Sustainability Group comprising lead climate change officers and chaired by Steve Wellings, Chief Executive of Telford and Wrekin Council, has been looking at potential City Region wide projects and initiatives that could add value above and beyond what could be achieved by individual action.

The City Region is proposing to hold a City Region Climate Change Summit in May 2009 at the Birthplace of Industry, Ironbridge in Telford. It is also timely as it is Ironbridge’s 300th birthday and so on the anniversary of the birth of the industrial revolution, the Summit will seek to inspire today’s decision-makers to commit to making the West Midlands the home of the low-carbon revolution.

The Summit will be looking to engage businesses, partner agencies and sectors such as education and health with a ‘festival’ theme showcasing ‘physical’ case studies, demonstrations and good practice.

The City Region is also proposing to undertake a Mini-Stern. The work will be co-ordinated by a number of partnership officers and would follow the more comprehensive and full framework of the Stern Report.

It is proposed that the City Region Mini Stern be built upon the Local Climate Impact Profile and UKCIP 08/09 datasets. Arriving at a headline economic impact figure for the City Region over the next 20 years, for the affects of Climate Change would be hugely powerful. The Mini-Stern would seek to identify the clear risks to existing businesses, communities and infrastructures within the zone, but also highlight to new and very real opportunities that will exist in adapting and mitigating those risks

The Climate Change and Sustainability Group are also pursuing a City Region procurement project incorporating collective purchasing power for street lighting. This project would incorporate the wider scope of street lighting to include street signage lighting and bollards.