The environment movement's call to action ‘Think Global, Act Local' has never been more apposite to those of us engaged in the work of local government.
While much will change for local government in the next six months with the Local Government Bill, the latest (perhaps final) proposals of Sir Michael Lyons and the expectations of the Waste Strategy, the most important impact will be contained within the commitments of the Climate Change Bill. 
While the challenge of climate change is often set in national and international terms the actual work required will be the cumulative effort success of local initiatives because success requires action by individuals, public bodies, and by other sectors all of whom act locally within the sphere of influence of local government.
Climate change will only be addressed through the active engagement and leadership of local authorities.
Over the past ten years or so public policy has moved from seeking to address the balancing act between economic opportunity and social inclusion to one that has begun to recognise the impact of environmental limits on both, not least the limit to the atmosphere's ability to absorb carbon dioxide without consequence.
For a community to be strong and prosperous in the 21st century it will need to be aware of its impact on the environment and to act to reduce the negative consequences of that impact.  While all of the impending legislative changes offer opportunities for local government to ‘act locally' the White Paper offers both an opportunity and a number of tools through which local government can properly address the climate challenge. 
The power of well being allows every local authority thepower to do anything which they consider is likely to achieve the promotion or improvement of the economic, the social and the environmental well-being of their area. 
This power is fundamental to the role of local government and to the impact it can make on the local action required to address climate change.  To do this members and officers need to think about the potential of the power in an holistic way. 
We must ensure greater number of members and senior officers know what the well being power offers and we must help them understand how
it can be used, for in the end there is no point considering actions which promote either
economic or social well being if they then reduce environmental well being.
Second to the power of well being, which might be considered a power within an authorities' gift or direction, the process and substance of the sustainable community strategy and the Local Area Agreement (LAA) can be powerful tools to support local climate change action. Clearly government realises this having brought economy and environment together as a LAA theme.
Working with a number of local strategic partnerships it is clear they have begun to understand this, prompted by a realisation that addressing climate change has positive benefits for their place, be that the jobs which go with low carbon energy, the sense of place that can be generated by an active environmental ethos and the role public agencies can themselves play through their own energy use, employment practices (e.g. home working) and waste management activity.
So as you lead the development of your sustainable community strategy and LAA' think about how an holistic understanding of well being can help your partners and your people meet the challenge of climate change.
Hywel Lloyd is a Senior Fellow of Organisation Development with a particular interest in sustainability, at the Office for Public Management.bal warming