Only 4 out of the current 12 members of the Manchester “Stakeholder” Steering Group on Climate Change have completed the “carbon literacy” training that is supposed to be a core part of a ‘low carbon culture’. In addition, the crucial post of energy is currently vacant.

The Stakeholder Steering Group was set up in 2010. It was supposed to be made up of members of the public elected at an annual ‘stakeholder conference’. But the elections were never held, and the conference cancelled. One of the (many) other unkept promises of the 2009 “Manchester Climate Change Action Plan” was that by the end of 2013 everyone who lived, worked or studied in Manchester (approximately a million people) was to have received a day’s “carbon literacy” training.

Well, in a spectacular example of not walking its own talk, the Steering Group has not sorted out its own training, with a decline over the last two years as people left the group. This follows a recent MCFly exclusive that virtually none of the Greater Manchester  “Loadsa Caucasians Hub” sorry “Low Carbon Hub” board members have completed their training. As for Manchester City Council – MCFly has the information, and will be releasing it next week. It’s not pretty.

According to the chair of the Steering Group, Gavin Elliot,

“A dedicated Carbon Literacy session for MACF SG was held on 11 Feb 2014.

· At that time we had identified 12 posts on the SG to be filled, but from recollection, a couple were vacant. Immediately following the training course of the 7 out of 10 members of the SG had received Carbon literacy training.

·         As people have come and gone from the SG that number has now reduced to 4”

Meanwhile, the post of leader of the energy group is vacant, which is a little problematic, given energy’s crucial role in Manchester’s emissions.

Just for the record, here’s the current list of members of the Steering Group.  Although it’s a “Stakeholder” group, oddly, members of the public are NOT able to attend its meetings.  This is Manchester, we do things differently here…

Chair: Gavin Elliott

·         Governance: Nigel Rose

·         Communications: Holly Bonfield

·         Events: Simon Curtis

·         CO2: Ali Abbas

·         Low Carbon Economy: Helen Seagrave

·         Adaptation: Jeremy Carter

·         Low Carbon Culture: Dave Coleman

·         Buildings: Will Swan

·         Energy: Vacant

·         Transport: Simon Warburton / Nicola Kane

·         G+BI: Steve Merridew

·         SCP: Kate Chappell (who is also holds role of elected member with responsibility for the environment)

·         Programme Director MACF CIC: Jonny Sadler