With Cornwall Council having declared a Climate Emergency in January 2019, and an Ecological Emergency after COP26, you might assume councillors would be falling over themselves to get educated on the subject. Unfortunately you'd be wrong.
Cornwall Councillors were offered free online Climate Literacy Training as part of their induction training after the May elections. Having heard that uptake on the training was on the low side, even after six months, I asked the council how many councillors had actually completed the training. Out of 87 councillors, just 5 have actually finished the package!
According to Councillor Alvey, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, there are other means for councillors to get educated on climate change, such as induction sessions in the Council's carbon neutral programme, and all-member briefings. Around 30 members have participated in either of those avenues, though it's unclear how much climate change and ecological information is conveyed in those sessions.
The online Climate Literacy Training package reportedly only takes a couple of hours to complete, so it doesn't seem a great deal to ask of councillors who are supposed to be helping us get to net zero by 2030.
Cornwall Council have also offered funded training for two councillors or staff in each parish and town council. With over 200 councils of one sort or another through the Duchy, it's perhaps surprising that fewer than 40 town and parish councillors have taken up the training.
Cllr Alvey advised that almost 700 Cornwall Council staff have taken the training, a considerably higher percentage than councillors.
Is your councillor one of the 5?
If you'd like to know whether your councillor has completed even the most basic climate literacy training, perhaps you could ask them? Find out who your councillor is, and how to contact them, here.