The Climate Change PPS puts climate change at the centre of what Government expects from good planning. Climate change is the greatest long term challenge facing the world today. Tackling it will require contributions from all parts of society.

The PPS is underpinned by the Planning Act which places a duty on local planning authorities to take action on climate change. This requires them to include in their development plan documents, policies designed to secure that development and use of land in their area contributes to mitigating and adapting to climate change. The Act also places a duty on the content of regional spatial strategies, requiring them to include policies designed to secure that the development and use of land in the region contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.

• What is mitigation/adaptation?
• Assessing vulnerability to climate change
• UK Climate Impact Programme (UKCIP) Scenarios
• Ensuring policies address adaptation

Spatial planning

Effective spatial planning is one of the many elements required in a successful response to climate change because, used positively, it has the ability to influence the emission of greenhouse gases and secure resilience through the location, scale, mix and character of development. The objective is to deliver low-carbon and resilient communities based on a healthy natural environment resource which is able to provide services vital to society.

Spatial planning can influence what happens across a broad range of sectors. The latest estimates of the UK’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by end user and sector are provided in the Government’s annual report to parliament on the Climate Change Programme.

Planning has a particularly important role in shaping and helping to deliver the energy platform for more sustainable buildings. More local renewable and local low-carbon sources of energy will be key to delivering the Government’s target for all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016, and its similar ambitions for all new non-domestic buildings to be zero carbon from 2019. Local energy will include both micro-generation serving individual buildings, and community level schemes such as combined heat and power. The approach set out in the Climate Change PPS is intended to help make the most of opportunities for decentralised and renewable or low-carbon energy.

The vision of an EfficienCity that Greenpeace has created, provides a vivid illustration of the type of low-carbon community that the planning system can help deliver.

Decentralised Energy for Resilient Communities

Source: Decentralising Power: An Energy Revolution for the 21st Century, Greenpeace, July 2005.