My more general point is what would such a statutory duty actually achieve on the ground? It would move climate change mitigation up the local authority priority list, out of ‘discretionary’ into ‘obligatory’, with increased council funding likely coming as a result. But beyond a bit of extra money, what would actually get done on the ground? Would we be back to similar level of commitment we saw with NI186? I would argue that while, on paper, NI186 councils were strongly committed to climate change, the action they followed up with was patchy to say the least (variety of reasons for this, not apportioning blame at all).

Duties, targets etc are part of the mix and can help to shoehorn issues into a crowded agenda. As NI186 did a few years ago, perhaps a similar gee-up from Whitehall is necessary to reverse the trends identified in last year’s Green Alliance report. But that only gets you so far – you need to win the political argument on the ground for reducing emissions or else a statutory duty of any kind will be met with the minimum required action and likely weak implementation of any local carbon plan that emerges.