Climate Change: a tool kit for communities in Devon

In 2010, the County Council, together with the Community Council of Devon and the Devon Association for Renewable Energy (DARE), created a 'toolkit' to help local communities prepare a 'Climate Change Action Plan'.

Much of the information might be considered out-of-date: however, there are some helpful guidelines and pointers to local planning.

These are the main points covered:

What is the toolkit for?

Communities across Devon are becoming increasingly aware of the need to explore, plan for and develop actions to meet the challenges of climate change. In some communities activities are being driven by dedicated climate change action groups. In others the issues are being identified through community led planning (e.g. Parish Plans).
This toolkit sets out a process which can be used by communities to enable them to create a Climate Change Action Plan either as part of a Parish Plan or as a separate community backed initiative.
The toolkit will also signpost communities to sources of information and support available to help them develop a Climate Change Action Plan and to implement the ‘actions’ identified. 

Climate Action Groups and how to set one up:

Climate Action Groups take a number of different forms and it’s hard to define what constitutes a ‘Climate Action Group’. Some groups will have been formed especially to consider and tackle climate change issues, whilst others will have been created for other reasons, but will pursue activities that have an impact on the climate change agenda. 

Groups might be more concerned with Adaptation; which is about how we deal with the changes to climate conditions and the effects on our communities – or with Mitigation; which is about the actions we can take now to reduce or reverse the shift in the climate patterns eg cutting CO2 emissions.

There are a number of specific movements with which individual Climate Change Groups can align themselves. Perhaps the best known at present is the Transition movement which has grown from its roots in Transition Town Totnes and now spreads across several continents.

Is there a group in your area? A list of known Climate Action Groups across Devon is provided in Tool 2 
[page 48].
If you want to start your own Climate Action Group you can contact any of these organisations for advice: 
Transition Network: www.transitionnetwork.org

Setting out your campaign
Involving the Community
Action Planning
Publish and Celebrate
Implementation

Greener Communities Creating a Climate Change Action Plan: A toolkit for change: Creating a Climate Change: Action Plan

In fact, these steps can be seen as a combination of the 'official':

> local emergency planning: Community (Parish) Planning; EMERGENCY Management - Devon County Council December 2014 newsletter

> parish/neighbourhood/local plans: East Devon District Council - Neighbourhood Plans; East Devon District Council - Planning Policy (inc LDF & Local Plan)

and the 'unofficial':

> transition towns: The 12 Ingredients of the Transition Model | Transition US; The Transition Handbook » Transition Culture; Energy Descent Action Plans | Transition Network

> local business resilience: Climate South West, building resilience to extreme weather and climate change in the South West
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