Andy Burnham after his election announced his ambitions for doing Greater Manchester a Green City. For this, it needs to improve and protect the environment, green spaces and air quality. In 2018 was organised Green Summit and drafted a plan to be carbon neutral by 2040. The plan will be approved in March 2019, though.
In this mission, Alex Ganotis was put in front to lead the bold project of doing Greater Manchester zero emission carbon. Tyndall Centre for Climate Research concluded to reach this aims it will need to hold the cumulative carbon dioxide emissions at under 17 millions tonnes, cutting an annual average of 15%.
“We currently aim to reduce our carbon emissions by 48% by 2020 and are well on the way to achieving this. But this is not enough or fast enough to hit our Carbon Neutrality target. A big change is needed to scale up and deliver deep carbon cuts and to protect and improve green space across the city region.”
So far has been hit some achievement according to Mark Atherton, assistant director in Greater Manchester Environmental Team.
“We have created the Greater Manchester Environment Fund to support their aims and produced a Natural Capital Investment Plan to promote investment”.
They have produced a retrofit report to assess how the current building stock can affordably be retrofit to cost-efficient standards.
Ganotis said: “Old buildings are more important than new ones. Over 80% of our current building will be still in use in 2050. We do a lot of funding. But we need to rump it up.”
Another crucial issue in the carbon footprint is energy consumption. According to Atherton’s statement: “Energy Northwest will lead a workstream to assess how more future energy demand can be met from smart, renewable sources.”
Transport and traffic is clearly a huge key in the environment and the air quality around Greater Manchester. For tackling this the drivers of the most polluting vehicles may face a penalty.
Ganotis: “What we need to address is the more polluting vehicles. And they are buses, lorries, taxis, private hire vehicles and vans”.
In order to deal with transport congestion, there will be an investment in doing the streets more suitable for bikes and pedestrians.
“It will transform cycling and walking in the city region by investing up to £50m per year for three years.”
Also, the plan bets for supporting electric vehicles.
“GMCA will establish a new public sector-led commercial model for the electric vehicles charging network.”
All these points are explained in detail in the Transport Strategy 2040, with a concrete plan 2020-2025.
On daily consumption, GMCA had tried to eliminate, or reduce as much as possible, the single-use plastics. Atherton sais they are still dealing with big retailers such as Tesco o Asda.
Ganotis also said: “What we are not saying this is Combined Authority plan and the Combined Authority will deliver this. Because this will not works. There is a lot of this that we as Combined Authority should do but on our own, we cannot do it. This is something one take part. Business and individuals too. They need to understand what their footprint is and what they can do.”
For this, GMCA also delivered an effective environmental communication campaign to educate and raise awareness within the ordinary people.
In spite all the effort done by the authorities, there are some groups who think more effort is needed. Liz McKelvey from the environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion says it is not enough. It is needed to declare Climate Emergency.
“Although people make the right noises, it is in two year time they will make a plan. What about these two years? We know now what we need to do.”
If you want to know more about GMCA authority plans click here.
The Green Bee 