UPDATE Fri 12th July: The trouble with Newsflashes is that you can end up accepting the “framing” of the people who gave you the info or the format of the report.  The reality is that Manchester City Council’s emissions would have gone UP if it weren’t for responsibility for traffic lights moving to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM).  See here.

Manchester City Council has released its fourth Annual Carbon Reduction Plan.  It reveals that “a 7% reduction in carbon emissions was achieved between 2011/12 and
2012/13, against a target of 10%.”  Although this is the third successive failure to achieve a targeted 10% reduction, the report states “this reduction is in line with the interim target to end-2013/14, with emissions having been reduced by 14.4% over the three
years since the baseline year, 2009/10.”

The 18 page report, which you can download here goes on to look at the last year’s performance, the plan for 2013/14 and the “Governance, Delivery and Performance Management” for the coming year.

MCFly is gathering opinions from various stakeholders about this report, and will be publishing news and views over the coming days.

The report will be scrutinised by a committee of elected members (councillors) next week.  All members of the public are invited to attend this meeting, of the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee meeting next Tuesday, 16th July from 2pm.  (See MCFly’s youtube video about the committee here.) It will be held at Manchester Town Hall. Before the meeting there is an opportunity to meet other concerned citizens at an event called “Beyond the Carbon Budget” organised by Manchester Climate Monthly.  That event will see the launch of a report on the state of Manchester’s biodiversity, written by local campaigner Dave Bishop.

The meeting starts at 12.45pm, and is held at the Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St, very close to the Town Hall.

If you want to get involved in making this event a success, please get in touch via mcmonthly@gmail.com.  We have jobs small and big, simple and difficult to meet your every whim!