by Dr Thomas Knowland
FMP Event at The Celtic Manor Resort
2016 will go down as a year of turmoil. Few of us a year ago would have anticipated we would be in 2017 with an unexpected occupant of the White House, and a Government now tasked (almost to the exclusion of all other aspects of policy) with getting the UK out of Europe.
The international Paris Agreement on climate change has come into force earlier than expected (4 November 2016) now that more than 55 countries have adopted it, representing more than 55% of global emissions. The UK Government has signalled its intention to adopt the agreement as well.
On a more sombre note, in September 2016 carbon concentrations in the global atmosphere passed the symbolic 400 ppm (parts per million) threshold at a time of the year when atmospheric carbon dioxide is usually at its minimum. This means that global efforts to address climate change will need to be all the more urgent in order to avoid 2'C of warming which is generally considered the safe threshold for global climate change. But even at this level we are likely to see climatic change which will be very serious for parts of the world.
In response to this global challenge and in order to deliver economic, social and environmental benefits locally, Leeds City Council adopted Cutting Carbon and Improving Air Quality as one of its priority Breakthrough Projects. The current carbon reduction targets (from the Leeds Climate Change Strategy: Making the change 2012 to 2015) are summarised below.
Scale |
Baseline year [approx. CO2 emissions]* |
Target [approx. CO2 emissions] |
Progress to date using latest data available |
Internal (LCC’s operational buildings and services) |
2008/9 [137k tonnes] |
40% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 [82k tonnes] |
The council emitted 137k tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2008/09 and in 2014/15 this had reduced to 110k tonnes, a reduction of 20%. |
Citywide |
2005 [5m tonnes] |
40% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 [2,993k tonnes] 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 [998k tonnes] |
Citywide emissions were 5.06m tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005 and in 2014 this had reduced to 3.66m tonnes, a reduction of 27.7%.
|
In 2015, Leeds joined 50 other UK cities in signing a pledge that commits to eradicating carbon emissions (i.e. 100% reduction) and running the city on green energy by 2050. The current Climate Change Strategy for the city requires updating in the light of the progress made to date and to take account of these new targets.
The Council reduced its own emissions by 20% by 2014/15, against the 2008/9 baseline, which means the emissions have reduced in line with the 40% target. Key achievements include:
The following are identified as the key deliverables to continue to work towards the 40% reduction by 2020 in carbon target within the Council’s estate and fleet:
However, the next 20% reduction will be more difficult to achieve as many of the cheaper and easier measures have been completed and the items that are left are the more challenging items such as behaviour change and installation of district heating.
Dr Tom Knowland
Leeds City Council
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