Report of the Manchester Climate Change Agency and Partnership

This report provides a progress update on the refresh of Manchester’s Climate Change Framework 2020-2025.

The Committee considered the report of the Manchester Climate Change Agency and Partnership that provided a progress update on the refresh of Manchester’s Climate Change Framework 2020-2025.

Key points and themes in the report included:

·         Providing an introduction and background;

·         Describing that the Framework refresh was to establish more detailed and quantified data around the actions the city needed to take to reduce its direct, energy related emissions and stay within its carbon budgets;

·         The work to better understand and address indirect emissions;

·         The Framework would also include an update on research to move the city forwards on climate adaptation and resilience;

·         The recent research on the intersection between addressing health inequalities and climate action;

·         The consultation process; and

·         Next steps, noting that the refreshed Framework was expected to be completed in the first quarter of the new financial year (April-June 2022) and launched in quarter two (July-Sept 2022).

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were: -

·         The need for Councillors to effectively scrutinise the work and outcomes of the Manchester Climate Change Agency and Partnership;

·         How were the progress against the carbon emissions targets and carbon budget for the city reported;

·         The need to reiterate the urgency of the climate emergency;

·         The need to communicate with residents the scale of the challenge and the need for immediate action;

·         Noting the scale of the challenge to adequately insulate homes across Greater Manchester and the need for the government to fund this, particularly in the context of increasing fuel and energy prices;

·         The need to include consideration of carbon emissions from transport and not restrict consideration of this subject area to Nitrogen Dioxide (No2) emissions; and

·         The need to galvanise and progress actions across the city at speed and scale to mitigate the impending climate disaster, using all levers and influence available to the Council.

The Director, Manchester Climate Change Agency informed the Committee that the progress against the city’s carbon budget was reported annually via the annual report that is produced and presented to the Committee. She advised that it would not be possible to produce a meaningful quarterly update due to the complexity of the data reporting and the lags in the data release from a number of sources.  She described that the refresh of Manchester’s Climate Change Framework 2020-2025 would articulate the scale of the challenge and establish actions against the targets.

The Director, Manchester Climate Change Agency agreed with the comment regarding the importance of communicating with all residents the need to take immediate responsibility and actions to address carbon emissions. She advised that it was important to recognise that people would have a range of different motivations to implement personal behavioural change, so there was not a ‘one size fits all’ approach to achieve this. She described that they did have a Community Engagement Programme that was designed to work with and support different community groups on a range of climate change projects. She further made reference to the work of the Youth Board as means of strengthening engagement and communications.

The Executive Member for Environment commented that she noted the comments regarding carbon and transport emissions and advised that a briefing note to Members would be provided following the meeting that described the plans and actions to address this.

The Chair concluded this item of business by paying tribute to all staff working to address climate change. She stated that she recognised the scale of the challenge and the capacity within the Climate Change Agency and Partnership, noting an international global response was required. She further called upon the Government to adequately fund activities to tackle climate change, noting that the larger polluters in the country needed to be prioritised.

The Chair further paid tribute to the Members of the Committee for their continued engagement and scrutiny of the climate agenda, noting that they articulated the voice of residents across the city on this important issue. She commented that the scrutiny process had helped inform and shape the Council’s response to addressing carbon emissions and would continue to contribute to the city to becoming zero-carbon by 2038 at the latest.

Decision

The Committee note the report.