This week’s record temperatures and heat-related fires in the UK were a stark reminder that global warming is detrimental to us all as the planet warms.
There is no getting away from the fact that unless global greenhouse gases peak by 2025 the world is unlikely to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.
This is the message from the April report produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the United Nations’ body for assessing the science related to climate change.
However, the UN’s climate scientists also sent an inspiring message to cities: “If they want to, mayors and other city leaders can play a huge part in turning things around. That’s because cities increasingly concentrate most of the world’s population, making them places that ‘provide key opportunities for climate mitigation and cutting emissions’.
The IPCC report is that cities need to be redesigned to favour more ‘compact’ layouts — like the 15-minute city concept (more of that in one of my other blogs). U.N. scientists are also urging cities to get moving on decarbonising buildings, which in Europe are responsible for roughly 40 percent of energy consumption and 36 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions.
So, what role cities can play in the fight against climate change? — particularly when it comes to keeping down emissions and improving air quality.
Locally we have a gargantuan task ahead of us in tackling the transport issue. Stoke-on-Trent being a linear city served by the arterial A500 dual carriageway suffers from the rest of the road network being a Victorian system unable to cope with traffic volumes. An underfunded bus network and no local rail or tram services as in larger cities means the population is still overly reliant on the car for short journeys.
Stoke-on-Trent is set to benefit from £29 million from the government’s Transforming Cities Fund, as part of their Levelling Up agenda, helping to revolutionise the city’s transport network and how residents get around.
Plans for the funding include a dramatic revamp of the area around Stoke-on-Trent train station, where a brand-new transport hub is to be created that will offer local commuters and visitors to the city better access to taxis, buses, and cycling, while also improving walking routes to and from the station.
Further works are planned at Longton train station, with the installation of lifts, facilities to support cyclists and new passenger-waiting shelters. The improvements will improve accessibility to the station, encouraging more people to make use of the station and its links to the city.
Bus passengers should also benefit from priority routes across the city for the first time as part of plans to cut congestion and bus journey times on the city’s roads.
In Rugeley, regeneration services provider and Staffordshire Chambers patron, Equans, are undertaking one of the largest brownfield projects in the UK transforming the site of the former coal-fired power station into a sustainable low carbon community with its own town-wide Smart Local Energy System. This is one of just a dozen such pioneering programmes in the UK and will demonstrate how carbon emissions and energy costs can be reduced whilst also providing a boost for local regeneration.
The much-heralded district heat network will provide a welcome reduction in energy costs for thousands of Stoke-on-Trent householders but is still years of readiness for the domestic energy market.
Whilst all the above is a welcome shot in the arm, it is not the total solution. There is progress but current measures will not see carbon emissions peak in 2025 and start a steady decline thereafter. Decades of under-investment and neglect and a rising dependency on the car mean we must act to build on this pump-priming initiative with a structured well thought out programme of continued investment from public and private sector partnerships.
You can read the full IPCC report here: AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2022 — IPCC
If you want to talk to us about business issues highlighted above, or any other issues including funding, you can call our switchboard on 01782 202222 or call the Stoke and Staffs Growth Hub Helpline on 0300 111 8002 or email: info@staffordshirechambers.co.uk
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