City Reflections & Ambitions - Manchester

"As one of the first cities to lead the Industrial Revolution of the 19^th and 20^th century, Manchester was powered by carbon at a time when understanding of climate change remained low, if not non-existent.

Over the past 15 years, the city has led the way in understanding the impacts of carbon, climate change and the pressing need for urgent decarbonisation, mitigation and adaptation. This has included creating a dynamic, creative, wide and innovative climate coalition of supporting organisations to drive decarbonisation and support the new green economy of the 21^st century.

This process has included:

• In 2009, a ‘Call to Action’ to all sectors of the city to work together to tackle climate change and reduce the city’s carbon emissions.
• This led to a high-level Manchester Climate Strategy 2010 – 2020.
• The positive collaborative work that this strategy developed inspired the creation of the Manchester Climate Change Agency in 2015, one of the first to be created in the UK.
• In 2016, Manchester City Council published the ‘Our Manchester Strategy’ with tackling climate change one of the core components within it.
• In early 2018, the first meeting of the Manchester Climate Change Partnership was held. The Partnership brings together all the major players in the city to the common aim of reducing carbon emissions. One of its first tasks was to agree to a science-based zero carbon target and the creation of carbon budgets for the city from 2018 – 2100.
• In 2019, Manchester City Council, following on from a decade of positive climate action, formally declared a ‘climate emergency’ and embedded the work to create a zero carbon Manchester by 2038.
• In 2020, a Manchester Climate Change Framework for 2020 – 2025 was published, and it is currently being refreshed. The Zero Carbon Cities project which Manchester leads has been a fantastic opportunity to bring extensive detail to the city understanding its carbon footprint and work to deliver its science-based target. The refresh document will be published in 2022.

Manchester was one of the first cities in Europe to establish both a science-based zero carbon target and a series of carbon budgets to challenge the city to work with in its drive for decarbonisation.

As an international, outward-facing city that is fully aware of the impacts of climate change, Manchester has led the Zero Carbon Cities project not just to assist it in developing more detail to delivering on its science-based target, but to encourage other cities to undertake the same process, with all the detailed and complex challenges it brings"

Councillor Tracy Rawlins, Executive Member for the Environment

The URBACT baseline study and the URBACT E-university providing additional information on the necessity of developing science-based targets, climate proofing municipal budgets, case studies and examples of engaging residents and businesses gave Manchester an important structure with which it has used as it updates its original climate change strategy.

URBACT have also provided Manchester with a greater level of focus on the importance of inclusiveness and digitization in putting together climate change action plans. There has been a conscious move to develop a more diverse MCCP over the period of this project, with a subgroup established to address not just this within the Partnership, but also in how the city seeks to engage with all parts of the community. This was particularly relevant for Manchester’s Small-Scale Action where Community Assemblies were held in two quite different parts of the city – one in the more prosperous parts of the city and one in the most deprived – to ensure it could consider the different needs on climate action, climate justice and on the greater challenges these changes could put on more vulnerable communities and residents. In terms of digitization, an accessible website was developed as part of the Small-Scale Action to encourage comments from residents and Neighbourhood Climate Change Officers, as well as provide an easy-to-use online survey for both residents and businesses in commenting on the barriers to developing robust climate change action. 

As already noted, Manchester and GMCA are heavily involved in a considerable number of transnational bodies seeking to focus on climate change. These include Eurocities, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy and the global climate change assessment body, CDP. When Manchester started this project, it had a CDP rating of ‘C’, but by focusing greater detail on its partnership work, updated plans on carbon budgets, creating a more detailed evidence base and focusing on new targets; as well as outlining in more detail on adaptation and resilience work, it has been upgraded in 2021 to a ‘B’. With a detailed adaptation and resilience plan and more detailed Framework 2.0 being delivered in 2022, the Agency are working on outlining its actions with CDP this summer. We are also pleased to note, that with the collaborative support we receive from the GMCA, that Greater Manchester’s extensive engagement and activity has seen it awarded an ‘A’ from the CDP process.

The project has assisted Manchester in engaging further with the Tyndall Centre over its carbon budget analysis, as well as in commissioning Anthesis to provide MCCA with a series of challenging metrics on the level of ambition Manchester needs to provide across all areas of its economy. Our Small-Scale Action allowed for an effective and very useful engagement exercise with community groups and businesses, which has created new opportunities for the future.

The cooperation and engagement with a wide range of other European partner cities has been of high value in putting Manchester’s work into a sharper context, comparing how we are doing with those other cities and sharing useful information, best practice and learning between each other. The Masterclasses facilitated through URBACT has helped our own learning and reinforced that the direction taken in developing a science-based target with carbon budgets was the right one to make. This has placed Manchester, and all the other partner cities, in a better position than previously to ensure we all play our full part in helping to limit the global temperature rise.

Above all, the project has made the city aware of how important its ULG – the MCCP – is in driving change, innovation and collaboration on climate change action so that the city is more broadly focussed on carbon reduction, mitigation, adaptation and resilience. The MCCP has widened in its participation and its structure has improved bringing both an expert academic independence through its Advisory Groups, as well as a greater sense of activity through various task and finish groups. The anticipated creation of a health and wellbeing advisory group and increased activity on an inclusive economy and ‘Just Transition’ will enhance this further. The Agency will continue to work with the Partnership to strengthen its role, increase its diversity and aim for its representatives to be from a wider range of organisations responsible for an increasing share of the city’s overall carbon budget.

Next steps –

• Conclude and publish the Manchester Climate Change Framework Refresh.
• Work closely with the Partnership – ULG to develop improved Annual Reports for both the Agency and, for the first time, a specific Partnership Annual Report.
• If successful with funding bids, plans are in place to further develop the work delivered in the ‘In Our Nature Programme’ and in supporting the Manchester Youth Climate Manifesto.
• A number of other academic programmes to enhance this work are currently being discussed by the Agency, on behalf of the Partnership, with the Meteorological Office, Advisory Groups, the local universities, the University of Leeds and the University of Exeter.