City's bid to get carbon zero targets back on track

A raft of environmental projects are in the pipeline amid concerns about a city's slower-than-hoped progress in achieving "carbon zero" status by 2038.

Climate change projects worth £100m are being planned in Manchester in a bid to slash emissions and boost its green credentials.

Making Manchester a Net Zero city is expected to cost billions overall, with investment needed from both public and private organisations.

Hitting the 2038 target would put Manchester well ahead of the UK national goal of 2050.

The "£100m project pipeline" in the MCR Plan 2025-30 would be a series of milestone projects from a mix of funding sources, including cash from the government and GB Energy, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The latest Manchester Climate Ready report for 2026 stated the "pace and scale of activity must increase" for the city to stay on track with its goal, and that emissions are "not reducing fast enough".

It added: "Manchester's emissions have fallen by 50% since 2005.

"In 2018 a goal was set to reach zero carbon by 2038. Since then, the city's emissions have fallen by 23%.

"Though positive, this is far below the 55% reduction targeted for that period to stay within the city's carbon budget."

The neighbourhoods, environment and climate change scrutiny committee met on Tuesday to discuss the situation.

Labour's Mandie Shilton Godwin, the council's cabinet member for clean air and environment issues, said: "We know we are not decarbonising at the pace that we need to."

The Manchester Climate Ready report revealed the city has "exceeded" its total carbon budget - 15m tonnes - that was set in 2018.

Data showed that in 2024 Manchester emitted 1.74m tonnes of CO2, "nearly twice" the target set by the carbon budget for that year.

Liberal Democrat Alan Good described the situation over the city's carbon budget as "depressing".

Labour's Angeliki Stogia, chairing Tuesday's meeting, said: "Manchester is moving in the right direction in terms of reducing our emissions, but I think it's clear we are not at the base we want to be. The reports are clear that there are significant challenges that remain."

Sam Nicholson, director at Manchester Climate Ready, said the net zero target is still possible despite the situation.

A council report set out some of the changes being planned to cut carbon.

Schemes worth about £1bn have been identified overall.

The plan aims to install more than 50,000 heat pumps by 2030, and retrofit nearly 80,000 homes to better energy performance standards, increase the use of public transport and active travel, such as walking or cycling, in the city and switch 28,000 more vehicles to electric by 2030.

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