The report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer is attached.

Manchester City Council’s Climate Change Action Plan 2020-25 sets out the actions that need to be delivered to ensure that the Council plays its full part in delivering the city’s zero carbon ambition.

It was reported that the Council has been working with partners to take action on climate change for over 10 years and had developed a series of action plans with associated targets, the most recent of which covered the 2016-20 period. The Council’s previous CO2 target was to reduce its direct emissions from buildings, energy and transport by 41% by 2020 from a 2009/10 baseline. The latest available data from 2018/19 revealed that a 48.1% reduction had been achieved.

The Climate Change Action Plan 2020-25 made a number of specific commitments:-

·                Deliver at least a 50% reduction in carbon emissions from the Council’s buildings, energy and transport by 2025 (from circa 30-32,000 tonnes in 2019/20 to circa 15-16,000 tonnes in 2024/25) via a 13% year on year reduction;

·                Report quarterly on progress against the actions in the plan and provide quantitative reports on data in tonnes of CO2; and

·                Become zero carbon by 2038 at the latest (based on the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research definition of zero which is at least a 95% reduction i.e. a reduction of 35,547 tonnes CO2 from the 2018/19 total which would mean that the Council’s direct emissions in 2037/38 would be less than 1,871 tonnes CO2).

It was reported that the estimated savings which would need to be achieved over the next 5 years would be:-

The Plan also set out the different roles the Council had, including enabling and influencing, reducing direct emissions and reducing indirect emissions.

The report highlighted that additional revenue and capital funding has been identified to respond to the 10 July 2019 Climate Emergency Declaration and to deliver the Plan which would be kept under review as further detailed funding for specific projects or programmes was agreed.  It was explained that the Council’s Zero Carbon Coordination Group and associated workstreams would be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Plan and identifying additional sources of internal and external funding.

Members again, noted the hard work that had gone into developing the Action Plan and thanked all the officers involved for their contributions.  It was commented that there was a clear commitment and momentum within local communities and amongst young people in wanting to tackle climate change and that the Council needed to harness this to help it achieve the commitments within the Plan.  It was also commented that whilst some service areas had adopted a “business as usual” approach to integrating tackling climate change within the delivery of services, all Council services would need to quickly adopt this approach.

It was noted that the report had also been considered at a recent meeting of the Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee and the committee had endorsed its recommendations (Minute NESC/20/20).

Decisions

1.         To note the content of the Manchester City Council Climate Change Action Plan 2020-25.

2.         To adopt the Manchester City Council Climate Change Action Plan 2020-25.

3.         To delegate authority to the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer, in consultation with the Executive Member for Environment, Planning and Transport, to update and amend the action plan as necessary; and

4.         To note that future editions of the action plan to be reported to the Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee and published on the Council’s website at: www.manchester.gov.uk/zerocarbon.