Powys County Council is one of almost five UK councils that doesn’t yet have a written climate action plan, according to data released by Climate Emergency UK (CE UK).

The co-operative, which has been working with local authorities since 2019 to share best practice and encourage effective action, has produced a scorecard which assesses all UK council’s climate action plans published before September 2021, and written after 2015.

Of the 409 local authorities in the UK, 325 were deemed to have valid climate action plans, leaving Powys with almost a fifth of UK councils without a plan for tackling the climate emergency.

CE UK used 28 questions to assess each council’s plan. The questions include: whether the climate actions are costed; if the actions are assigned to specific teams; do the actions have a clear goal; are local residents being engaged with climate action; does the plan include strategies to decarbonise waste, planning and homes or other services that councils are responsible; and does the plan cover areas such as re-skilling the workforce, climate education, governance and funding for climate action.

Powys County Council declared a climate emergency on September 24 2020. This included an ambition to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero, in line with the Welsh public sector target of 2030.

The council has responded to the results of CE UK’s scorecard assessment, referencing a climate strategy which is currently in its consultation phase.

A spokesperson for Powys County Council said: “Having declared a climate change emergency and committed to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2030, the council also recently consulted on its first draft climate strategy.

“The draft Red Kite Climate Vision and Strategy builds on actions already undertaken by the council but also combines suggestions from staff and the community. It also includes input from the committee on climate change, the Partnership Council for Wales, Local Government Association, Climate Emergency UK, and many others.

“Through this strategy the council aim to play its part in combatting climate change by facilitating change and providing civic leadership across the county that will encourage others to follow. However, the responsibility to make these changes does not solely lie with the local authority and the council is keen to work with all local, regional, and national stakeholders to ensure sufficient action is taken and progress made.

“The council is currently going through the consultation responses to strengthen the strategy. The final version of the strategy will be considered by Cabinet on 1 March.”

Isaac Beevor, from CE UK, said: “Councils may be doing good things which aren’t reflected in their action plan. That is why next year we will be assessing all councils on what they are actually doing.

“Local authorities can help to deliver 30% of the cuts in carbon emissions needed to get to net zero, according to the 6th UK Carbon Budget published a year ago, so it is vital that councils do as much as they can.

“This year’s scorecards are just the start of the process. It has been an important exercise to understand what makes a good council climate action plan and we hope that it will help councils learn from each other and up their game. A good plan will help a local authority deliver effective actions, as well as enabling local residents to know what their council has committed to and so hold the council to account.

“While we understand that councils need much more support and funding from the national government, and have been stretched by responding to the pandemic, the fact that some councils have developed well thought out, cost and ambitious plans, shows that it is possible.”

The Welsh national average score was 31%.

CE UK’s scorecards for all UK councils can be viewed here: councilclimatescorecards.uk/