Update: 8th July – See this very thorough article in The Meteor about this report.
Cities across the UK have not kept their promises of emergency action on climate change, a new report has found. Core Cities and the Climate Emergency – Learning from Each Other, co-ordinated by Climate Emergency Manchester and drawing on research by residents of six other cities, paints a picture of delay and small-scale ambition, dating back long before coronavirus changed the landscape.
None of the seven cities covered in the report – Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham or Sheffield- has achieved the goals they set for themselves when they declared climate emergencies or in Nottingham’s case did not but committed to urgent action, back a million years ago in 2019.
Chloe Jeffries, one of the authors of the report, observed:
City leaders were keen to get good publicity for their promises. Our report shows that none of them has followed up their fine words with actual deeds across transport, energy and other sectors. Climate change has not gone away, and without real emergency action, will make life much worse, especially for the poor and the elderly
The report examines Councils action on targets, governance and engagement, energy, transport, homes and building and finally nature and the circular economy. The top scoring councils, with 5 out of a possible 12, were Bristol and Nottingham.
Future reports will expand the comparison to all eleven Core Cities, and draw on more detail from upcoming Covid-19 recovery plans. If you’d like to be involved, please get in touch.
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