Community-Owned 'People's Power' Energy Projects as the Right Path to Tackle Climate Change and Empower Britons
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/andy-burnham. "British people understand the climate crisis threat. Today I’m empowering them to tackle it | Andy Burnham | The Guardian." September 17, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The Prime Minister is announcing nearly £30 million to help local communities build and partly own their own renewable energy projects, like solar panels or wind farms. He argues this is better than letting private companies profit from the green transition while ordinary people foot the bill, and that since Brits are already feeling the effects of climate change, they're eager to be part of the solution.
Conclusion
The UK government should fund and empower community-owned renewable energy projects (the 'People's Power' program) as the primary strategy for addressing the climate crisis, because this approach both reduces bills and gives ordinary people direct ownership and agency, in contrast to a top-down regulatory model that burdens citizens while enriching private companies.
Premises
- British people are already experiencing the severe effects of climate change firsthand (record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires, extreme weather), so they understand the urgency of the crisis.
- People want to be active participants in solving the climate crisis rather than being excluded from decisions that affect them.
- Community-owned energy projects (solar, wind, hydro) allow local groups to retain partial ownership and profit from the energy they generate, putting money back into communities.
- Producing more domestic clean energy is the only sustainable way to permanently lower household energy bills, beyond temporary measures like VAT removal.
- There are two possible policy routes: traditional top-down regulation that imposes costs on citizens while private companies profit, or community empowerment that creates jobs, lowers bills, and returns power to local people; the latter is preferable.
- Prior examples of local public control (e.g., bringing Greater Manchester buses under public ownership) demonstrate that this approach produces better outcomes for the people who rely on the service.
- Existing community energy schemes across the UK already work well, providing a proof of concept that justifies scaling the program nationally via a larger £1bn investment.
Assumptions
- Community groups and local councils have or can develop the technical and financial capacity to build and manage energy infrastructure effectively.
- Success in small-scale, likely well-resourced or motivated community energy pilots will generalize to widespread national scale-up.
- Local ownership stakes will translate into meaningful reductions in national energy bills, not just localized benefits for participating communities.
- The dichotomy between 'traditional Whitehall regulation' and 'community empowerment' captures all realistic policy options, with no significant middle ground or complementary need for regulation.
- Public understanding of climate urgency (from lived experience of extreme weather) will translate into sustained public support and participation in these energy projects.
- Government funding allocation and oversight will be efficient enough to avoid waste or mismanagement across 1,000+ projects.