This afternoon, I popped in to the LGA’s conference on the Green Deal.

I’m glad I did. Not because I heard a host of good news, but because it helped me clarify what I think is wrong about local government’s approach to carbon and climate. It turns out that it’s about Localism.

Basically, this government’s interpretation of Localism – or perhaps it’s actually the interpretation of its civil servants – is a world away from what felt like a broad cross-party consensus not so long ago: that each place should be shaped differently, according to local circumstances and choices, within a national framework of minimum standards.

And, more upsetting from my point of view, the local government family doesn’t seem to be willing to contest the point.

Let me explain. Here’s why I’m at odds with the consensus on carbon:

1.Central government still thinks local government is there just to deliver stuff; basically, councils know about their local areas, so they can use that insight to deliver. A slide today revealed that CLG’s view of local government’s role (under a ‘localist’ approach, no less) doesn’t include anything you’d consider strategic, or anything that might fall under the banner of ‘place shaping’. Councils are expected to persuade communities, get local partners co-operating, etc – all good stuff, but purely operational.

2.Local carbon budgets seem to be off the agenda. There is a national carbon budget. You may well consider the previous government hubristic for having introduced it – and particularly for giving parliamentary accountability for it exclusively to central government departments – but is has been accepted by the Coalition, and exists as the state’s way of accounting for delivery of the carbon reductions required by the Climate Change Act. Surely national carbon emissions are the sum total of the emissions of every locality, so why wouldn’t we consider the case that every place should do its fair share? And why wouldn’t the local government family want to take this on? In CLG’s view, local carbon budgets are a ‘hard sell in a localist world’; my take on it is that they’re a hard sell in a state that has given up on meaningful localism. Or a nation that is so laissez-faire that we really think that not acting on climate change is a valid option.

3.Both central and local government agree to continue to ignore half our carbon footprint. When we look at the real carbon footprint any area is responsible for (taking account of all the goods and services that residents use and buy) we see that the size of the footprint is twice what official figures say, because the latter only count direct emissions (from exhausts, say) and the emissions from power stations to create the electricity we use. I understand that this flows from Kyoto; I understand that consumption-based metrics are difficult, because supply chains are devilish things to pin down; and I understand that this raises tricky political issues (no-one wants to be seen to be asking people to moderate their flying). But I don’t understand why this gets swept under the carpet, rather than treated as something we need to work out. As it stands, my Borough is measured as having a smaller carbon footprint if I fly off to Barcelona for the weekend than if I spend it at home watching TV; we act as though this is rational.

You might respond that my analysis is only partly about what localism means (point 1 above). But points 2 and 3 above would surely not be so uncontested if local government collectively was prepared to assert its strategic role.

I’m sure some will wonder why this matters. Why do I get so worked up? My response is a rhetorical question: why would anyone talented, or ambitious for their area want to be a chief executive of, or stand for election to, an organisation whose role is seen to be so limited? The long-term implications, for a sector already damaged by decades of increasing over-centralisation, are depressing.

So, what do you think? Have I become hopelessly romantic and idealistic in my middle age? Have I misunderstood? Is there something about times of austerity that makes ‘place shaping’ – or whatever you want to call it – less important (to me, the reverse seems true), or less possible?