Manchester Climate Monthly’s new reporter “A. Green” looks ahead to the meeting of the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee (2pm Tuesday 10th March, Manchester Town Hall).

Tomorrow, the Neighbourhoods scrutiny committee of Manchester City Council will be discussing the report “Manchester City Council Climate Change Action Plan 2015/16 to 2017/18.” This report [already delayed by a month, Ed] contains a progress review of the targets set out in the council’s Climate Change Action Plan, describing which of these targets it is meeting and which it isn’t meeting.
Here are some of the goals which the report highlights that the council has failed to meet to date:

• Goal: 60 Councillors undertaken carbon literacy training by end of 2014 Result: 25 to date.
• Goal: report from the Food Board delivered by March 2015 Result: A report from the Food Board has been deferred to post-elections [when?] to allow for other priority items to be considered.
• Goal: Deliver a programme of LED replacement of street lighting, 14/15 Replace 10% of residential units and all traffic route/city centre units Result: “Programme changed to commence delivery in 2015/16.”
• Goal: Measure and monitor those members that have given up car ownership Result “Limited progress made regarding this action due to data not being captured specifically for Manchester.”

Looking at these failed targets does make me feel despondent and worried about the council’s ability to meet its ambitious and necessary targets to reduce C02 emissions. Many of the targets so far which have not been met seem very trivial (e.g. monitoring car ownership has had limited progress due to it not being done). However, there are larger targets a few short years away which are much more ambitious and it will remain to be seen if the lack of meeting the trivial targets will be followed by not meeting the more substantial targets in the years to come.