Andy Burnham soft-launched his premiership last week in the engine room of Manchester's People's History Museum. A venue which showcases radical stories of people coming together to champion ideas worth fighting for. It was a fitting room to choose. The quiet engine of "Manchesterism", the pragmatic, cross-party way of governing he has come to personify, has for years been Greater Manchester's approach to ambitious local climate action. One that is rooted in communities, delivery and the individual experience. One designed for the region and implemented locally.

You will rarely see it in the headlines, and the Bee Network is a good example of why. Bringing the city-region's buses and trams back under public control is, among other things, one of the most significant pieces of local climate action anywhere in the country. But that is not how it is sold to the people who use it. It is sold as more reliable, more affordable journeys: a night at Co-op Live, a family picnic in Heaton Park, an extra hour with relatives, a job that was previously out of reach. Not emissions saved or modal shift achieved, but trips that matter, made easier.

If Mr Burnham is the poster boy of Manchesterism, then he knows instinctively that local climate action sits at its heart, and that communicating it well, in the language of people's everyday priorities, is what brings communities along for the journey. That is why we are hopeful that this week's speech on rebalancing power, the first real sketch of his premiership, will see climate embedded in the "devolution blitz" he wants to lead, rather than left as a separate department's problem.

Climate action is the growth

There is a bigger truth beneath the slogan he chose, "good growth in every postcode". In most communities, climate action is not a competing priority to growth. It is the growth. The investments that cut household bills, create skilled local jobs and lift the value of high streets and homes are overwhelmingly the clean ones: home-grown power, more comfortable homes, convenient and affordable transport, fresher air. Britain's clean energy economy has been growing more than three times faster than the wider economy, and every £1 invested in local climate action returns an estimated £14 in wider social and economic benefit.

We make this case as a proudly cross-party network, whose 120-plus member councils span Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green, Reform and independent administrations, because heatwaves, high bills and dirty air respect no council boundary, no mayoral patch and no party rosette.

The presumptive prime minister and his team will, at least, inherit real foundations: Ed Miliband's clean energy mission, the Local Power Plan, a Future Homes Standard that closed a decade-old gap, and a Warm Homes Plan with real money behind it. The task now is to let local leaders turn that national ambition into delivery on the ground, because upgrading the 28 million homes already standing, and rewiring local energy, is overwhelmingly a job for councils, not a national scheme at arm's length. The last time it tried that, it overwhelmingly failed and in the case of ECO led to poor quality work and hit public trust.

Unfinished business

There is also one piece of unfinished business a Burnham government could complete quickly. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act, which received Royal Assent in April, creates Strategic Authorities as a permanent new tier of English government and names climate among their areas of competence. But, as the government's own guidance concedes, it "does not transfer statutory environmental or climate-related functions" to them. A cross-party coalition of more than 500 councillors backed a statutory climate and nature duty, modelled on the health duty the Act does include.

That coalition included 22 council leaders and deputy leaders, along with 61 cabinet members. Nearly nine in ten of the members we surveyed supported it, as did 24 cross-party MPs and the Local Government Association. Mr Burnham has backed the statutory responsibilities councils need, too. The duty remains an open ask.

What matters most

So while we wait for the details, here is what we think matters most.

First, keep up the momentum of devolution, every part of England needs the coordinated strategies and collaboration crossing council boundaries that Manchester has enjoyed. No community is left behind for want of a deal.

Second, pair that fiscal devolution with a clear statutory climate duty, so local leaders have both the freedom and the responsibility to act.

Third, replace the merry-go-round of short-term, competitive funding pots with multi-year, place-based settlements, so all councils can plan clean power and warm homes rather than re-bid for them each year. Too many still spend more on writing bids than on fitting the solution. It's wasteful, bureaucratic and keeps a veto in Whitehall over the delivery of political priorities.

Mr Burnham knows better than most what it looks like when Westminster trusts a place to deliver; his own engine room is the proof of it. But he would be the first to recall the unnecessary and baffling restrictions they imposed on him as well. As he finalises his plans for government, he mustn't underestimate the 'systems' ability to outwait and outlast politicians, especially in our febrile times. Governance reform is politically boring. But unless there's a concerted effort to get this right and to move quickly, the underpinnings of his whole agenda will unravel. UK100's offer is simple: we represent the local leaders, of every party and in every kind of authority, ready to turn good growth in every postcode from an ambition to a reality. Give every council the duty, the powers and the funding, and they will deliver it.