Greater Manchester again recognised amongst top global city-regions in tackling climate change

Greater Manchester has been recognised by CDP as one of 123 cities across the globe that is taking bold leadership on environmental action and transparency.

Designed to encourage and support cities to ramp up their climate action and ambition, the A List is based on environmental data disclosed by cities to CDP, a global non-profit that runs the world’s environmental disclosure system for companies, cities, states and regions. The full CDP A List can be viewed here.

To score an A, a city must disclose publicly through CDP’s ICLEI Track, have a city-wide emissions inventory and have published a climate action plan. It must also complete a climate risk and vulnerability assessment and have a climate adaptation plan to demonstrate how it will tackle climate hazards. Many A List cities are also taking a variety of other leadership actions, including political commitment from a city’s Mayor to tackle climate change.

Greater Manchester has seen great progress made against its Five-Year Environment Plan to help it secure an A rating, with highlights including:

Becoming the first city-region in the country to produce and adopt Local Area Energy Plans

Through £47m from the Green Homes Grant and Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, we have supported thousands of people to take action to decarbonise their homes, making them better insulated, less draughty, and heated sustainably. GM managed programmes have completed the retrofit of over 2500 resident homes and aim to complete the retrofit of 4000 homes by March 2023

As part of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme Phase 1, Greater Manchester has invested £77.1m in retrofit and low carbon energy generation for 200 public buildings. This is the largest programme of activity funded via the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme

Bee Net Zero, a collaborative Greater Manchester programme to support organisations on their journey to becoming net zero, has been launched to make Greater Manchester the easiest place for businesses to be net zero carbon

We launched the Go Neutral Smart Energy framework, analysing 4000 sites across GM for low carbon energy generation, storage and EV charging, a key part of Greater Manchester’s public sector work to decarbonise its estate and create a smart energy system

The Trafford Green Hydrogen Park has received planning permission for will potentially be the largest green hydrogen production facility in the UK

City of Trees and GMCA have secured £300,000 of funding from Defra from the Woodland Creation Accelerator Fund to accelerate tree planting across Greater Manchester. This will help us bring the benefits of trees and woodlands to more people across the city-region by building capacity locally to identify and bring forward the sites where the most benefits will be realised

Greater Manchester has become the first major conurbation outside London to cap bus fares as part of our plan to revolutionise travel across the city-region. We are seeking a minimum 33% zero-emission bus fleet by 2027, with a fully electrified fleet by 2032

To help achieve this, an order of 50 new double-deck electric buses has been placed for operation from Sept 2023, with around 300 more electric buses to be delivered from 2024 through to 2027

GM has 108 cycling and walking schemes with a total value of more than £500 million in the development pipeline, with 100km of new cycling infrastructure installed so far. In addition, the Bike Hire Scheme is currently operating with 220 bikes across 41 stations and is awaiting approval on 6 final stations; the Cargo Bike pilot has 23 e-cargo bikes operational

The last of 27 new Metrolink trams have arrived as part of £72m network investment

A List cities are demonstrating their climate leadership through concerted and effective action, just as national governments have been asked to do at COP27. They are taking twice as many mitigation and adaptation measures as non-A List cities.

Greater Manchester and the other 122 cities on this year’s A List are also celebrated for showing that urgent and impactful climate action – from ambitious emissions reduction targets to building resilience against climate change – is achievable at a global level, and in cities with different climate realities and priorities. However, this action needs to go further and faster.