In July 2019 Manchester City Council unanimously voted to declare a climate emergency. The original motion committed the Council to “Continue working with partners across Manchester and GMCA to deliver the 2038 target, and determine if an earlier target can be possible, through a transparent and open review.”
A Liberal Democrat amendment “Explore the possibility of introducing a 2030 target in line with the IPCC report and request that a report on its viability be brought back to the Executive before the end of the year.” was accepted, also unanimously.
Since then, there’s been a lot of murkiness and confusion about what would be done by when. See this failed attempt at a non-answer, for example. As MCFly reported recently, there will be a report to Executive (and that meeting has been pushed back because of the General Election).
It seems the review IS happening, albeit delayed. According to the website of the Manchester Climate Change “Agency” (actually a community interest company funded by Manchester City Council)
http://www.manchesterclimate.com/plan
Updating Our Targets – December 2019
During December 2019 to February 2020, the Tyndall Centre are undertaking a review of Manchester’s targets to ensure we have up to date commitments in relation to the latest science and the Paris Agreement’s 1.5oC target. The scope of this review is:
- Direct CO2 emissions: updating the targets we set in 2018 (as above)
- Indirect / consumption-based CO2 emissions: to recomend the objectives and targets we should adopt to address emissions from the products, materials and services that we use here in Manchester but which are produced / originate outside the city e.g. electronics, furniture, clothing, construction materials, vehicles (their manufacturing), and others.
- Aviation emissions from Manchester Airport: to recommend the objectives and targets we need for managing aviation emissions from Manchester Airport, in the context of the Paris Agreement and as part of wider national and international action.
The brief will be available to download by end-November 2019.
Today is the 27th November. Will the brief be available to download in seven minutes, seven hours, or seventy two? Watch this space…
And how “open and transparent” the review is remains to be seen. Seriously, watch this space.
It was closer to seven minutes. The five page document is now up here.
Dates for your diary-
manchester climate monthly 
There was an article, in a recent edition of New Scientist magazine (No. 3256, 16.11.2019), by Adam Vaughan entitled ‘Zero Carbon’s Hard Problem’. The article pointed out that the manufacture of steel and concrete produces “whopping amounts of carbon”. A Cambridge academic, Julian Allwood, is quoted as saying: “They [steel and concrete] are responsible for half of all industrial emissions”. I wonder if Manchester’s current ‘incontinent’ building boom will be factored into the Council’s climate emergency measures? I wonder if the building boom will actually cancel out any climate emergency measures?