Climate Change Update
Argyll and Bute Council · 4 November 2025
Back to Bute and Cowal Area Community Planning Group — 4 November 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Page 1 of 5 Date: 22 October 2025 Argyll and Bute Climate Action: a Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan for Argyll and Bute. Update to Bute & Cowal Area Community Planning Group 1.0 Purpose This report provides an update on overall progress with the climate change strategy, in particular on three points: • Overall progress • Legacy: progress with developing a legacy proposal, shaped by the Scottish Government’s aspirations for and funding support for Argyll as Climate Ready Region (formerly known as Regional Adaptation Partnership). • Community resilience/emergency plans: initial findings from review of existing plans and engagement with community councils 2.0 Recommendations The ACPG is asked to • Note overall progress since the August update, with some work on community resilience and legacy/ongoing partnership proposals brought forward and pushing back some work on the Action Plan, and a timeline to July 2026 • Note in particular the significance of the Scottish Government’s aspirations and support for developing an Argyll and Bute Climate Ready Region • Note the initial findings from review and engagement to date on community resilience/emergency plans, and suggest opportunities for sharing learning and best practice. 3.0 Detail 3.1 Overall progress since August ACPG meeting The funded period was originally due to end at the end of October 2025 but the CPP Management Committee agreed to reallocate elements of the budget in order to keep the project manager in post until July 2026 in order to support work on developing legacy proposals and support community councils developing resilience plans. These new deliverables over the extended period are within the same original
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Page 2 of 5 budget, although the project has subsequently secured further external (Scottish Government) funding to support specifics relating to the Climate Ready Region. Work with community groups on resilience is due to start in earnest in November but the project officer has been making contact with community councils and other groups across Argyll and Bute to build up a picture of what has been working well and areas on which to concentrate. In the same timeframe, the Scottish Government announced support for Argyll and Bute to develop its own regional climate adaptation partnership, as part of its aspiration for all of Scotland to develop Climate Ready Regions (formerly referred to as regional adaptation partnerships). Bringing forward work on resilience plans and Climate Ready Region development has pushed back completion of the overall Action Plan supporting the climate change strategy, in part due to the time spent on these other workstreams and in part the new workstreams necessarily generate new actions. The target to submit the draft action plan to the Climate Change Working Group and subsequently Management Committee in October is likely to slip into November (this update is written on 22 October) but the target to submit in time for the Management Committee to review at its December meeting and thereafter to publish for consultation remains. The revised timeline submitted to the CPP Management Committee is
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Page 3 of 5 3.2 Legacy/Ongoing Partnership Work: A Climate Ready Region for Argyll and Bute As noted above, the Scottish Government has provided some funding in the current financial year to support development of a Climate Ready Region for Argyll and Bute. In previous updates this has been referred to as a Regional Adaptation Partnership but the preferred Scottish Government terminology is now Climate Ready Region. The support is for: • Climate literacy and resilience training (to be delivered by Argyll & Bute Climate Action Network) • Officer time and engagement to develop proposals for governance models and business case (ABCAN and CPP Climate Change Manager) • Consultant support for governance and business case development • Plus in kind support from Verture/Adaptation Scotland An invitation to quote for the business case work is on Public Contracts Scotland at https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=OCT 541319 and a more detailed briefing and request for expert input to the short term working group to steer the consultants’ work has been circulated round the CPP’s Climate Change Working Group. 3.3 Community resilience/emergency plans The CPP Management Committee agreed that resilience and carbon literacy training should be foremost among the six priority areas for action in the climate change strategy and that a priority action for the climate change project manager should be to make use of available budget (the extended time in post) to support communities on climate change risk aspects of resilience plans. This is will correspond to roughly 20 days per Area if an equal number of days is allocated to each Area. The climate change project manager has reviewed existing resilience/emergency plans (the terms are frequently used interchangeably) where these are available. Some community councils and other groups may have plans that have not been made public and it is emphasised that the project manager is working under a funding agreement with the Council and other CPP funders that includes a confidentiality clause. The project manager has also met community councils or representatives thereof in all four of the Argyll and Bute administrative areas. This has been on the basis of where groups have been able to engage so far and an early task will be to develop a plan to reach as many of the community councils as feasible over the time available. Key findings so far are
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Page 4 of 5 • My role is to advise on the aspects related to climate change, but in practice these are inseparable from the many other aspects impacting upon community resilience. • I have reviewed all the existing plans that I have access to. While there are common themes, many are out of date, and they vary enormously in depth. • What they have in common is that any resilience planning is better than none. • There is sometimes confusion over terminology and whether a resilience plan is more an emergency plan of a broader social and economic resilience plan or community action plan. It may be useful to use the term “emergency plan” for clarity: the aim is to support and communities’ resilience through developing emergency plans. • Rural and isolated communities are often at greatest risk of being cut off and deprioritised due to low population, but often also have more agency. “Do nothing” while waiting for emergency services is not an option and being able to make call handlers aware that even under best case scenarios, response times are significant is seen as a valuable piece of knowledge to share. • There are widespread concerns about capacity within communities: often it is the same group of volunteers doing everything, and in some areas some 70% of the population are over 65. • On several occasions already meetings have been postponed (3 months plus) because groups are too stretched or a key person is unwell. Other groups have advised that they simply do not have capacity to engage. • Widespread agreement that the most vulnerable should be protected but concerns over GDPR implications of this. There are varying interpretations of the role of the Health & Social Care Partnership and what constitutes a vulnerable person. • HSCP, emergency services and many others do excellent work, including proactive work, much of which can go unnoticed. While there are shortcomings there is also much working well. • There is understandable reluctance to advertise either vulnerability, or conversely ownership of valuable items such as power tools, quad bikes. • Most groups say that during an emergency, people tend to pitch in but outside of emergencies people are concerned about liability issues. People are uncertain to what extent they are covered by a community council’s insurance. • Developing household resilience is highly desirable and InspirAlba and others are doing excellent work but stockpiling supplies and investing in equipment is out of reach of too many vulnerable households. • Flooding is seen as a priority in some areas but in others, the major concern is high wind and associated impacts. • SSEN etc may provide assistance to key groups during emergencies, but concerns over ability to pay and reclaim, or to be able to travel to safer locations.
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Page 5 of 5 • Concerns with telecoms and especially loss of analogue land lines: a fear expressed at various meetings is “people will die”. Some groups have expressed interest in procuring 2 way radio or satellite phones. Provision of temporary internet, such as from boat owners with satellite internet, has been seen as a very valuable improvised response in some cases. • Community Action Plans and Local Place Plans can offer valuable information and in an ideal world, combining these with developing community resilience plans would be ideal. In practice, some groups have said that they are already overstretched developing their LPPs. • General recognition that emergencies are likely to get more frequent and serious even before bringing in the climate change considerations. Andy Macpherson, Climate Change Project Manager For more information, please contact: Andy Macpherson andy@act-now.org.uk