Richard Baker, Strategy and Policy Director at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (North East LEP), explains what the new Net Zero North East England evidence base shows and how it will inform the region’s transition to net zero.

At the heart of the response to the climate emergency are a group of key targets and timelines which have been developed by the global scientific community to drive a policy response from Government’s, business and other partners and stakeholders. 

These targets, which together define the rate at which we need to remove climate gases from our atmosphere to restrict global warming, have been developed and debated internationally through scientific collaboration and inter-governmental debate. Following the UN Climate Conference in Paris in 2015, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calculated a global emissions budget which would enable the temperature rise to be limited to a critical metric of 1.5° C. This has, in turn, created the opportunity to allocate ‘fair shares’ of emissions, giving participating countries direction on the contribution they need to make as part of the global effort to achieve this aim.

In the UK, this led to the Government adopting a national target to achieve so-called Net Zero by 2050.

Alongside this commitment, partners have also discussed and agreed a vision of what this transition should look like in our region. They have agreed that the journey to net zero should not only be about the removal climate gases from the region, but that it should be one that delivers a fairer, cleaner and more productive region, which meets the following four outcomes:

• Decarbonisation, and the achievement and exceeding of an agreed net zero target
• Clean growth and more and better jobs, underpinned by innovation
• Environmental protection, restoration and improvement
• A Just transition, with climate-induced change shaped to embed opportunities and higher quality of life for residents. 

What gets measured gets improved

We’ve made an excellent start on publishing the evidence available to support Net Zero North East England on the North East Evidence Hub here. We did this collectively – led by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, whose role it is to provide robust evidence to inform regional decision making, and supported by Newcastle University and wider regional partners.

Within this evidence base, you will find data that we will continue to monitor – summaries and analysis of what this means and a commitment to measure our progress in reducing emissions and capturing carbon, and on social, economic and environmental indicators.

The data presented includes UK greenhouse gas emissions, provided by the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory, and statistics on regional emissions of CO2 and other gases, produced by UK Government (see the data here). You’ll see information on carbon emissions from industry, commercial, public sector, domestic and transport sectors, and data from land use, land use change and forestry.

We’ve also included Intelligence and modelling reports. There are a range of reports and evidence available which have been produced in or about the region, including the case study report published in 2021 by the Department for Business, Environment and Industrial strategy on the North East (including the Tees Valley). This report modelled the economic outcome of the transition to net zero on our region. It highlighted both the scale of the challenge and risks of the transition, but it confirmed that the region has distinctive opportunities in industries such as energy, transport and heat which, with support and investment, could deliver a positive economic outcome – you can see more detail on these opportunities here.

Partnership is at the core of Net Zero North East England and its through this partnership that we have also been able to include data and intelligence has been identified which shows progress, opportunities and challenges in each of the eight priority areas for action we have identified.

What does the data show?

As we launch Net Zero North East, the evidence base suggests that the North East has made significant progress in reducing its emissions and in contributing to the global transition to a greener and less polluted world since 2005. Over the period we have seen significant reductions in emissions from industrial and commercial sources, decreasing emissions at a faster rate than the UK as a whole.

However, it shows that despite this progress, calculations using a model developed by the Tyndall Centre suggests we need to move faster and further to achieve a ‘fair allocation’ carbon budget framed by the Paris agreement.

It demonstrates that whilst reducing carbon is of course a priority, we also need to focus on the other gases which contribute to warming, and different parts of our region deliver a different mix of climate gases as a result of the structure of their economy.

What is exciting to see is that there are significant opportunities to achieve our economic and social aims as we drive towards net zero – for example in renewable energy generation, decarbonisation of heat and transport, eliminating water and environmental pollution, and carbon capture through natural assets such as peat and forestry. To achieve net zero, we need to accelerate the impact across these themes, but with a focus on transport and domestic emissions in particular, which together represent 70% of our current emissions.

We still have gaps in our understanding and I am keen to explore ways to fill these. For example, there is a need to understand and address emissions which are not counted in the regional breakdowns of national data. As a trading region engaged with global supply chains and transport links, our activity will deliver emissions elsewhere. We need to engage with data providers to improve our understanding of these issues in order to shape action.

I look forward to continue to develop the evidence base.

Take a look at the evidence base.