Manchester cut its carbon emissions by 12 pc in 2020, according to new data which shows that the city fell short of its targets even during Covid lockdowns. The data published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is said to be the most accurate data available on emissions.
It reveals that despite a big drop due to the national lockdown followed by regional restrictions, the city still missed its target of a 13 pc reduction a year. Estimates for 2021 predict that emissions then rose by 6 pc the following year.
Councillors were warned this week that if these latest estimates are correct, Manchester will have already exceeded its five-year carbon budget as a city. Speaking at a Manchester council scrutiny meeting on Thursday (October 13), Labour councillor Annette Wright described the situation as 'absolutely dire'.
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She said: "It's worse than a lot of people anticipated these figures were going to be. This was the lockdown. We're in an absolutely dire situation now."
Green Party councillor Rob Nunney was 'really concerned' that the city missed its target even with a slowdown in carbon-emitting activities during lockdown. Manchester originally had a target to reduce its emissions by 13 pc per year from 2018 onwards to stay within a scientifically-calculated carbon budget.
But the city is on track to miss its first major milestone of halving emissions by 2025, meaning that a 16 pc reduction is now required every year until 2038 by which point Greater Manchester has committed to becoming carbon neutral. It comes a month after the scrutiny committee was warned that the city is set to blow its carbon budget for the rest of this century within the next five years.
The committee was told that the town hall is on track to meet its own targets, having reduced the amount of carbon it directly emits by 30 pc since 2020. However, Manchester Climate Change Agency director Samantha Nicholson said urgent action is now needed across all sectors of the economy in the city.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service after the meeting, council leader Bev Craig said the town hall will bring forward its carbon cutting targets, but acknowledged that this only accounts for 2 to 3 pc of the city's emissions. She said: "As a city, collectively, we aren't where we want to be.
"But we need some of the levers that enable us to do that and we need government support to achieve it. Rather than us just saying, 'this is terrible, it's too big', what we're saying is that we have a budget that we all need to collectively work towards.
"Other cities and towns and places should be doing the same. Let's all set ourselves budgets. Lets collectively as a country have a call to action."
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