Letter 24 — To Professor Rosa Foster, Yorkshire & Humber Climate Comission
From regional energy to visible evidence
Date: 5 November 2025
Recipient: Professor Rosa Foster, Director — Yorkshire & Humber Climate Commission and Leeds Climate Commission
Context
Week 4 of One Letter a Day focuses on institutional coordination and regional leadership. Professor Rosa Foster occupies a pivotal role in guiding the region’s climate transition: convening partners, aligning strategies and translating ambitions into practice.
The September 2025 gathering of the Yorkshire & Humber Climate Commission in Bradford offered a vivid example of regional energy and collaboration. This letter builds on that moment to ask how the region is turning momentum into measurable progress.
Letter
Dear Rosa,
Thank you for your leadership across the Yorkshire & Humber and Leeds Climate Commissions, and for the space you continue to create for collaboration across the region. Convening partners, translating evidence into practice and sustaining optimism in difficult times are demanding tasks, but also the foundation of lasting change.
I am writing as part of One Letter a Day: a year-long civic experiment to reopen grounded conversations about the climate emergency, starting here in Leeds. Each day I write to someone whose work shapes how we think and act on this crisis. The letters and replies are published online to keep open a visible and respectful dialogue between citizens and decision-makers about what progress really looks like.
I attended the Yorkshire & Humber Climate Commission gathering in Bradford this September. It was an energising day, full of committed people and practical ideas. I welcomed the examples of real delivery: the Bradford Clean Air Zone, already credited with cutting pollution and improving health, and the planned low-carbon hydrogen facility expected to power hundreds of buses. They show that ambition can translate into action.
Still, I left uncertain about the wider picture. We heard success stories but few numbers: no regional carbon-reduction figures, no quantified impact from the hydrogen or heat-network projects, no clear sense of how far these efforts move us toward the 2038 target. Without transparent metrics, even genuine progress can seem tokenistic, and that would undersell the work being done.
May I ask how you see the balance between convening and demonstrating results? What mechanisms are in place, or in development, to make regional progress visible and measurable? And how could engaged citizens or community groups contribute to that evidence-building so that accountability and communication evolve together?
Visibility matters not just for governance but for morale. Four in five people in the UK know climate change is serious, yet we seldom speak of it as the defining priority it is. When people can see that the needle is moving, that local action is measurably cutting emissions and improving lives, it builds confidence, restores focus and reminds us that the transition is real and shared.
With appreciation,
Vivien Badaut
Founder, One Letter a Day
www.one-letter-a-day.uk | linkedin.com/vivienbadaut
📨 Reply from Professor Rosa Foster
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Tomorrow’s letter continues Week 4’s sequence of regional leadership, turning to Noel Collings, Head of Net Zero & Energy at the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, exploring how infrastructure and investment are being mobilised to meet the region’s ambitions.