From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
This really is hilarious!
Manchester will blow its carbon budget for the rest of this century within the next five years if urgent action is not taken, councillors have been warned. If the city continues on the current trajectory, it would exceed its carbon budget of 15 MtCO2 set for a 82-year period up to 2100 by around 2027.
Manchester council declared a climate emergency three years ago and the city now has a target of becoming net zero carbon by no later than 2038. The town hall is on track to halve its own carbon emissions by 2025, having already reduced the amount of carbon it directly emits by 30 pc since 2020.
A refreshed action plan, which was endorsed by the council’s executive this week, recognises the progress made in retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient, installing LED street lights and using electric bin lorries. But the council only accounts for around 3 pc of the city’s carbon emissions.
Councillors were warned about the challenges ahead as an updated climate change framework for the city was approved on Wednesday (September 14). They were told the city would use up its carbon budget by 2027 if it continues to reduce its emissions by around 5 pc a year, as it did before the pandemic.
Labour councillor Tracey Rawlins, who is the executive member for environment and transport, said the framework is a ‘call to action’. She said: “The city as a whole is not progressing as fast as we should be.
“The emissions that we’re responsible for as an organisation are quite small. We’re doing what we can, but it’s really important we continue to drive that.”
It does no take a genius to work out that while councils might save a bit of energy here and there, introduce a few electric trucks and so on, whatever they do on their own is pure virtue signalling.
As the report notes, the council only accounts for 3% of the city’s emissions, most of which are totally out of the council’s control, and indeed the city’s.
The electricity Manchester uses comes from the grid, so they can do absolutely nothing about them. The vast majority of Manchester’s drivers own petrol/diesel cars, and its goods and passengers are ferried around on good, old diesel lorries and buses.
And how do Mancunians heat their homes? (I note, by the way, that the City Council has not decided to spend hundreds of millions of its budget on insulating all homes, not just council houses, fitting heat pumps and solar panels. I wonder why?)
Just as with every local council that has gone down the same route, Manchester’s councillors doubtlessly preened themselves when they declared their climate emergency. But they were not prepared to put their (ie taxpayers’) money where their mouth is.
