Don’t Look Back In Anger: Climate conference keynote speech quotes Oasis
One of the UK’s leading climate campaigners has told a conference that the drive to reach net zero “is on life support,” before quoting iconic indie band Oasis in a bid to inspire delegates.
Christopher Hammond, CEO of cross-party local climate network UK100, made the comments during his opening keynote speech at the Local Government Chronicle (LGC) 2025 event in Manchester, which featured a range of green-themed exhibits, discussions and speeches.
As one of the event’s sponsors, our Salix team members delivered a presentation on how our work helps reduce carbon emissions across the UK.
We’ve rounded up some of our conference highlights including listening in on the key speeches and talks throughout the day, as well as our own presentation.
Salix at LGC 2025 Net Zero
Our team gave a talk on the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, launched in 2020 to support public sector organisations in England to install low carbon heating and energy efficiency measures. Our senior programme manager for the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, Liam Gillard, led our presentation Decarbonising the Public Sector: Insights, Impact and What's Next.
We detailed how more than £3.5bn has been issued through over 1,400 grants up to the end of 2027/28, supporting public sector organisations to reduce their carbon emissions and energy bills. Through our work, we’ve made annual carbon emission savings of around 1,200,000 tonnes of eCO2 emissions – equal to the annual emissions of Peterborough, or the carbon offset by planting 55m trees.
Client support officer Olly Hannon highlighted some of the challenges in delivering a Public Sector Decarbonisation Sector project - such as timescales, cost increases, approval processes – and how to overcome them.
Olivia Crocker, also a client support officer, talked about our work delivering £726m of Phase 4 funding to 231 schools. This all highlights our mission here at Salix, which is to enable and inspire organisations to achieve net zero and create better places to live and work. Liam took a number of questions from the audience, sent to the room’s video screen, which included whether another fund might replace the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.
In the recent Spending Review government ministers took the decision not to support further investment in the scheme at this time. More than £1bn of Public Sector Decarbonisation budget will still be invested between now and 2028 via existing Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme grants and the Integrated Settlements with Greater Manchester and West Midlands Mayoral Combined Authorities. There will be no additional allocation of funding.
We are proud to have been one of the event sponsors, and to meet the stakeholders and delegates who paid a visit to our stand.
'Change the course of human history'
Chris Hammond, chief executive of UK 100, referred to iconic indie band Oasis’ upcoming concerts in their home city of Manchester next month in his opening keynote speech at the event in the city.
As he tried to inspire delegates to work together for change, he began by highlighting the potential impact of rising sea levels.
“Places from Lancaster to Liverpool could be submerged and wildfires in the Peak District will be common, and that’s the UK getting off lightly - hundreds of millions of people could become climate refugees — with water scarcity and extreme heat becoming the norm," he said.
"Losing the argument, losing the ambition, won’t be a matter of theoretical political debate, it will change the course of human history. Future generations will look at moments like this as defining moments,” Mr Hammond added.
The UK 100 chief executive welcomed the commitment to the Warm Homes Plan announced by the government in its recent Spending Review, but expressed disappointment that no further rounds of Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme funding - delivered by us at Salix – were announced.
Looking forward, Mr Hammond highlighted the impact councils can have on fighting climate change, claiming that "the government's own strategies state that 82% of UK emissions are within the scope of influence of local authorities."
The status quo is flooding, dirty air, pollution, Putin power, not clean homegrown power.
"We need to be braver at recognising that things aren't working,” he continued.
“A fossil-fuelled society leads damaging social and economic effects. Flooding, dirty air, sewage on beaches. It’s Putin power, not clean homegrown power.”
He finished by quoting Oasis as he said: "We can look back in anger at the political consensus we've lost, at the backlash we've faced, at the trust we've squandered. Or we can do what our host city and its inhabitants do best — pick ourselves up, learn the lesson, and build something better."
Other event highlights
A selection of takeaways from other talks and discussions we listened to:
- Green Party councillor in Shropshire, Julian Dean, warned that "whole countries worth of energy are needed for AI and nobody's talking about it." He also suggested retail offers could help increase take up of green initiatives, such as swimming pool season tickets paying for solar panels on the roof.
- A session titled Time To Leap: Making Localised Energy Plans A Reality highlighted the issues around listed buildings and retrofitting.
- We heard how Lancaster City Council managed to change national housing strategy as it prioritised decarbonisation, having declared "an ecological emergency, not just a climate emergency." Diane Neville, principal planning policy officer, planning & climate change service, also talked about how the authority sent flower seeds to residents to give them information on green initiatives, as well as visiting scout and guide groups as well as schools, to try and influence children.
- Tom Stannard, chief executive of Manchester City Council, told delegates to "stay being an optimist and keep working bloody hard," as he gave the closing keynote speech. He was asked whether devolution has been positive or negative for net zero aims, saying it has "helped through better establishment of soft power and a narrative of importance to the people and job creation." Mr Stannard said that retrofit was the hardest bit of net zero, and regarding transport warned that "preference of car travel causes all manner of problems in terms of congestion and emissions."
We enjoyed being part of this event. Thanks again to everyone who listened to our presentation, posed us a question, and visited our stand.
Some of the other exhibits at the event
