Tag: Transport

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Manchester’s Airport carbon emissions dwarf all other sectors in our city – and we own it. It’s time we face up to this moral dilemma and plot a different path for flying on our patch

I’ve taken a look at an important new piece of work that is out from the Manchester Climate Change Agency (MCCA).

The Manchester Climate Change Framework 2020-2025 sets out the huge challenge facing our city – to halve carbon emissions in the next five years – and tells us:

‘Manchester is ‘not currently on track to deliver its climate change objectives despite many actions across the city’.

There is quite a lot to take from the report despite the fact much of it’s not new, useful as it is (read my Twitter summary thread here).

But for me the main takeaway is that it puts Manchester’s Airport emissions firmly in the ‘official spotlight’ for first time.

The report shows clearly how emissions from flying/Manchester Airport (on which there’s been very little officially-sanctioned debate thus far) dwarf those from direct emissions, which have been focus of most of the city’s climate planning to date.

Direct emissions in Manchester versus Airport/flying and indirect emissions

I think this highlights the huge moral dilemma we face in Manchester, where Greater Manchester residents are in effect, majority owners of what is the UK’s third largest airport.

Continue reading “Manchester’s Airport carbon emissions dwarf all other sectors in our city – and we own it. It’s time we face up to this moral dilemma and plot a different path for flying on our patch”

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We have a ‘1 million trips a day’ challenge in Greater Manchester – which we can only solve if we stop driving short distances

In this in-depth post I set out compelling evidence why…

    • our climate and health crisis can only be solved with dramatic cuts to car use
    • leaving cars at home for short journeys is now critical, almost obligatory
    • we therefore need a massive programme of measures to disincentivise car use and induce behaviour change including

 

If Greater Manchester is to meet its environment, civic, and health commitments  – the city region’s transport challenge is very clear.

About one million MORE journeys EVERY day need to be made by foot, bike, bus, tram or train* by 2040, instead of by car.

The trouble is – no-one likes to talk about the last four words of that sentence. 

Our current strategies assume that this massive transformation of our daily habits will just ‘kinda happen’ as a result of new infrastructure, public transport investment and a bit of ‘awareness raising’. 

But a new report from the influential Transport Select Committee makes a clear set of recommendations that spell out this is a car-reduction challenge which must now be tackled head on.

Continue reading “We have a ‘1 million trips a day’ challenge in Greater Manchester – which we can only solve if we stop driving short distances”