If you are involved in local government, you’ll know that the environment matters – bins, cleaning and greening are the only services which correlate strongly with what people think of their authority, and are used by everyone. The two Davids – Cameron and Miliband – think so too, and used this year’s LGA conference to tell us. Here is an example of politicians not following, but leading public opinion. One could see this as bizarre – only President Bush now seems to think climate change is not a problem. National concern has risen from a miniscule 3% last year, to about 10% now. While it’s not top of everyone’s agenda, we do know it’s a problem, yet the key challenge seems to be translating this into action. Most of us don’t know or aren’t sure exactly how our own actions translate into environmental damage – or if we do, have a sense of fatalism about global warming. All of this poses big challenges. Astute politicians already realise this is going to become a defining issue. In London, the proportion saying litter is a problem has been falling over the last few years, as local government cleans up its act. At the same time, the proportion of Londoners saying climate change is a problem has gone from 37% to 50% in a year. Getting to grips with the problem will need strong political nerves. Telling voters they must travel less, consume less or very differently, is going to be hard. Local government is already finding itself at the cutting edge on this – it has to get people to recycle more. Exhortation and intelligent communications that highlight how much each street is contributing will help – but it will also involve fining people who deliberately flout the rules. Nothing can do more to annoy voters unless a big effort is made to lead opinion. Given that local government is slightly faster-moving than Whitehall, we ought to be showing what can be done – but are we up to it?
