There is not yet a clear technological pathway to completely decarbonise every community. Some technologies exist but need further development before they are ready to deploy at scale. Climate campaigners may have the country’s attention, but do we have the public’s support to encourage significant lifestyle changes in a relatively short period of time? The answer is not yet.

The right messages, messengers and approaches will be crucial for securing democratic consent for widespread and intense changes. So, let’s make sure those messages are co-operative. We’re going to have to diagnose the climate crisis for what it is—a crisis in its own right, but also a grim consequence of the wider political and economic systemic failings we face and need to fix.

Ordinary people don’t have a voice and services aren’t accountable to those who use them. Our economy widens the gap between the rich and the rest and concentrates ownership in the hands of the few. We have to talk about the climate crisis in terms of the political and economic crises which we’re facing, just as we have to come up with solutions to our climate crisis which change the fundamental structure of our economy and open up new forms of democratic participation.

For example, why are our communities sending money out of our economies to the big energy companies when we could be retaining it in the form of community energy? Community energy promises to be a fundamental part of the national energy transition we will be undergoing, let’s shout about it from the (solar panelled) rooftops.

It matters. It really does. It’s not a silver bullet, but done well, declaring a climate emergency can galvanise your media and social media to focus down on the issue of climate change and, having used the declaration as a hook, amplify the specific calls to action you want to promote. It helps to make the issue feel relevant to your local area, and it can give the crisis the political support that it could very well need in some of our town halls just to get momentum building.

So far 85 first- and second-tier councils have declared a climate emergency around the country, and the motions they’ve passed have varied in ambition. Some have committed councils to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; others have been more ambitious by aiming for zero carbon; others have been still more ambitious by setting a target date of 2050 and even 2030. Councils will have their reasons for setting their ambition levels, but a climate emergency declaration really has to stretch officers and rearrange their priorities to make a difference.

Few, if any, of these motions promote co-operative values. So, how are you going to set (or reset) your council’s journey to tackling climate change in a way which promotes co-operative values? To that end, I’ve drafted a motion—adding in suggestions from co-operative councillors at the party’s Local Government conference last weekend. Feel free to amend or entirely rewrite the motion, but how can you use the declaration to embed our movement in your council’s response.

An important part of a council’s transition is understanding how what they do produces greenhouse gas emissions and then what they can do to minimise them. On the basis that you measure what you value, and value what you measure, the first step to reducing carbon footprint is to measure it. Developing an evidence-based sense of your council’s annual energy consumption, annual CO2 emissions, local electricity production and corresponding CO2 emissions, and more besides, will help officers and councillors to identify the right emission reduction interventions for the areas of your council’s operations which make up the greatest level of emissions. Your Declaration could commit your Council to undertake a baseline emissions inventory by a particular point in time.

Just as councils pursuing the Community Wealth Building (CWB) model are working alongside anchor institutions, using our spending powers to forge a local economy that shares wealth and power more equally, so councils could work with large employers and emitters anchored in their communities to achieve rapid decarbonisation. Which organisations are your biggest emitters? How is your council engaging them? Is there a network that you can set up, with shared targets? Could your partnership, if one doesn’t already exist, promote other co-operative aims?

In Oxford, the City Council works closely with a local collaborative of over 40 organisations from the private, public and not for profit sectors that are responsible for over half of the city’s carbon dioxide emissions.Connections made through Low Carbon Oxford network sparked the story of BMW’s MINI Plant hosting one of the UK’s largest roof-mounted solar farms, generating enough electricity to power 850 homes.

Some of these interventions can be about harnessing renewable energy, shifting to zero emission passenger transport, insulating homes and reducing their thermal leakiness, cutting the waste you generate but ensuring you recycle whatever waste remains, perhaps encouraging freight modal shift, electrifying home heating, and creating a smart local energy system to manage demand. What have your environmental and sustainability teams been doing? And can they do it in the future in ways which do more to promote co-operative values?

In Oxford, we’re working through the Low Carbon Hub, a social enterprise that’s turning our rooftops and rivers into power stations. The Hub is developing community-led energy, raising money to build projects through community share offers and reinvesting 100% of any surplus revenue in scaling up existing renewable energy generating and scaling down energy demand. Every year, Oxfordshire spends about £1.5 billion on energy. This money goes out of the local economy to the big energy companies that are now mainly owned by foreign companies. But, through the Hub, we are retaining money locally and decentralising ownership of energy, and throughout the years, the Council has supported via three revolving loans totalling nearly £6m.

Oxford is introducing a Zero Emission Zone, which requires our Hackney Cabs to be fully zero emission capable by 2025, cleans up our bus fleet from 2020, and prohibits polluting cars and HGVs from parking and loading in our city centre from 2020. We’re encouraging people to shift from polluting vehicles to EVs through hundreds of EV charging points (including the first pop-up chargers to avoid street clutter) and schemes to promote electric Black Cabs. We’re home to two investments totalling £81m—the first called the Energy Superb which will include giant batteries to balance more intermitted renewable community energy on the grid, the second called Project LEO, which will help create an electricity grid to balance local demand with local supply.

Some of our best co-operative successes are happening under the radar. At the last count, there were 6,815 co-operatives nationwide. This is the tip of the iceberg— hundreds if not thousands of co-ops are doing good, but hidden, work in isolation from each other. It’s easy to understand why co-operators don’t always make themselves known—they’re too busy being co-operative in an economy which isn’t always geared to be supportive of co-operative approaches. But, when co-operators see each other, our communities can begin to think about putting more co-operative solutions into practice. A mapping of local co-operative efforts to tackle climate change could potentially prove enormously beneficial to your council as you develop your strategy.

How much we do is determined by how much money we have. Oxford City Council has brought in tens of millions in funding for measures to tackle climate change and clean up our polluted air, but we continue to struggle under cuts. Councils are facing a funding crisis. LGA Labour figures show Tory cuts mean councils have lost 60p out of every £1 that the last Labour Government was spending on local government in 2010.

In the absence of extra funding for an ambitious agenda to tackle climate change, how can you make the trade-offs which come with living in an impossible financial situation? Unless funding could be raised from Government or investors, spending more on measures to tackle climate change will mean spending less on measures to tackle crises in social care or homelessness. In Oxford, we’re being open with our citizens about the fact that councillors will have to make hard, potentially divisive choices about how we all meet the urgency of our crisis. We proposed to hold the country’s first and democratically purest Citizens Assembly to deal with climate change.

Some have asked why Oxford needs a Citizens’ Assembly. We already have one in the form of the council itself. Why are we doing ourselves out of a job? Why should we spend public money on a process such as this one? A Citizens’ Assembly won’t be appropriate for every area dealing with climate change, nor for every issue other than climate change—but it will be relevant for bringing every viewpoint into decision-making to build a majority for action. A Citizens’ Assembly can help us by breaking out of the bubble of the traditional green viewpoint to hear from a representation of views. We want to hear from voices that too often go unheard to forge city-wide consensus on the ambition, direction, and measures that are needed to tackle climate change.

Other approaches could work—perhaps a Scrutiny Committee standing panel, a dedicated cross-party working group, a mixed panel of experts and councillors, would meet your council’s needs.

Once you know what you’re aiming for, who you need to work with to meet your target, what policy interventions you may need to make your plan a success, and—with public and councillor input—what your spending and policy commitments you’re going to make, you have your strategy.

Oxford has a programme of work underway which we’re building on. We’ve declared a climate emergency to build momentum and raise local awareness, we’re lobbying Government for more powers and money to realise our ambition. We’ve proposed a Citizens’ Assembly to forge consensus on our strategy, and, after holding the Assembly from September, we’re looking forward to making decisions about how to become a Zero Carbon Council and lead the city to decarbonise.

No one council has all the solutions, so we’re eager to hear from other Councils and co-operators about what they’re doing and planning to do. Caught in the spiral of Brexit and austerity, and in the face of a climate emergency, our communities are crying out for co-operative solutions. How do we join together to meet our challenges? How can we join together to build that co-operative future?