Weekly @ClimateEmergMcr bulletin – Monday 13 Jan 2020

Last week we released our second Hung Drawn and Quarterly report, a 3-monthly review of the City Council’s progress on its Climate Emergency Declaration promises. The vastly improved report (thanks to Cazz!) was based on Freedom of Information Act requests and made for pretty grim reading. In the last 3 months there had been no speeches from the Council’s leader or CEO about the climate emergency, no carbon literacy training for staff or elected members, no lobbying of central government, flights to Southampton, Exeter and Edinburgh, and… well, you can see for yourself by reading the report. We URGE (as in plead, beg, implore etc) you to contact your local councillors (you have three – find them here) and any other councillors you know, with this link and ask them to comment. We are also very interested in your comments, criticisms and suggestions for improvements, because in April the third HDQ will come out.

The report got a little media attention, and we had an HDQ launch event at the Briton’s Protection pub on Wednesdays night – thanks to everyone who came, brief report to follow. We also addressed two of the City Council’s six scrutiny committees. On Wednesday we were at Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee where we had the opportunity to speak to our now completed petition. There were probing questions from the committee members. On Thursday Marc was able to address Communities and Equalities Scrutiny Committee, and managed to get the two Deputy Leaders of the Council to agree that including climate change as a separate item in their six-monthly written reports to scrutiny would be a good idea. We will blog about both these meetings shortly.

THIS week the main things we want to draw to your attention are

a) our social on Tuesday night from 8pm at the Sandbar. Four of the five core group members will be there, and you can come ask us questions, find out how you can be involved (but if you can’t do even social meetings because of caring commitments/no cash/etc, that’s fine, just email us on climateemergencymanchester@gmail.com

b) on Wednesday morning at 10am, the Executive of Manchester City Council is having its almost-monthly meeting. (The Executive is made up of 10 leading councillors out of the 96). At this meeting the upcoming Local Plan consultation will be discussed. Action on climate change will be mentioned, but we hope to make it a much more prominent part. We hope to be able to address the Executive (Chloe was able to in December). If you want to come to the Exec with us, join us at the Waterhouse pub (the Wetherspoons near the war memorial) from 9am.

Finally, please “save the date.” On Wednesday 5th February, from 2pm, the Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee will be scrutinising the “Zero Carbon Framework 2020-2038.” You’ll be hearing a LOT more about this in the coming weeks, but for now, please save the date, ideally from 1pm, since we will be having a pre-meeting (venue to be confirmed) before attending the Scrutiny Committee’s meeting and (we hope) addressing it.

As always, we want to hear your ideas, your suggestions. If you want to get involved, for any length of time, on any task, let us know. Loads of jobs and roles are available, especially if you want to do some research, graphic design, policy analysis, lobbying, film making, proorfeading.

This week

Monday 13th, 6pm XR Manchester The Old Bank Residency, Old Bank Building, Hanover St, M4 4BB

Tuesday 14th 8pm Climate Emergency Manchester social, Sandbar, 120 Grosvenor St

Weds 15tth, 9-11 am Manchester City Council Executive meeting (climate on the agenda0. Pre-meeting at the Waterhouse pub with CEM folk before attending.

Wed 15th, 7pm MCA Re-evaluation Meeting (hosted by Manchester Climate Action) Duclimer, 567 Wilbraham Rd, Manchester M21 0AE

Friday 17th, 12-2pm Fridays for Future gathering, outside Central Library 

Fri 17th 5-6pm  Solidarity with Australia (vigil) (hosted by Youth Strike 4 Climate Manchester) St Peter’s Square, Manchester

For more events in the coming weeks, see our calendar, which we want to be a super-comprehensive resource. If you have ideas about it, want to add events, please email calum@climateemergencymanchester.net

Mind you, Manchester Friends of the Earth’s calendar is pretty damn good too, and includes details of webinars they run

Best wishes

Marc Hudson, on behalf of the CEM group

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