Steering Group meets at long long last

OK, so that may not be quite the most exciting news headline you'll ever read, but this stuff does matter*. Please read on!

On the evening of Thursday 17 June, the "Steering Group" (SG) for the Manchester Climate Change Action Plan finally met. MCFly has been reporting on this group since it was first mooted, back in the back end of 2009. Essentially, its purpose is to be a group. That steers. The Action Plan. You know, the Action Plan that you've heard so much about from the Council; on their website, on their twitter feed, in the pages of Manchester Pravd.. People, on their facebook group, on the big screen in Piccadilly Gardens, on the blog of Richard Leese and the blog of the Executive Member for the Environment, via your Council Tax bill, via the Manchester Evening News and via interviews by officers and members when they pop up on BBC radio and Northwest Tonight and on Granada tonight. You know, that Action Plan.

But anyhow, about this group; It has a chair- Steve Connor, of the ethically inclined communications outfit "Creative Concern". That's the same Creative Concern who were heavily involved in the unsuccessful "Yes" campaign for the Transport Innovation Fund referendum of 2008. Mr. Connor has a blog called "headstretcher".

At the moment there is no Vice Chair (but that could change.) The SG was to be a twelve member body, but when the original nine met they decided to give themselves the option of expanding to 15, since they are keen to "plug gaps, grab talent and increase the diversity of the group." This expansion may go some way to help redress a pretty pale and male set up as it stands (Steve Connor is joined by Phil Korbel, Dave Coleman, Richard Paver, Paul Andrews, Nigel Murphy, Nigel Rose and two other... men.) The SG is not to be panel of experts, bur rather a stakeholder group. MCFly will report on these as they are announced.

The original plan was for the Steering Group to meet four times a year, but after discussion, it will meet "6 to 8 weekly in the first instance" with two more meetings before the November 30th "Stakeholder conference". The next meeting will be in late July, and IS open to the public (if you ask nicely).

They'll be preparing a report for that Stakeholder conference,and have as their immediate priority "to do a push on getting more organisations to endorse the plan and start preparing their own plans. That includes McFly readers of course!" Given the truly appallingly low take-up rate by organisations invited to endorse the Action Plan so far (46 out of 1067), that seems like a very good place to start. Watch this space.



MCFly says:
MCFly's gift to Steve Connor would be a lawn-mower. Or a scythe. Or perhaps a flamethrower. Anything that will help him hack away at the sky-high grass that has grown under everyone's feet since November 2009, when the action plan was launched with a certain hullaballo and self-satisfaction. We're more than half way to the first "stakeholder conference" (Tuesday November 30th. Book yer annual leave now) and there's been virtually no work on telling the public about what's going on. The website for the Plan doesn't allow people to make comments on it (positive or negative) and does not explain how businesses and organisations can "endorse" it. There's been no effort to maintain and nurture the incipient networks established in the hurly burly of writing last year's Action Plan. The second half of 2010 had better be substantially less crap than the first. Just sayin'.


*Sort of: MCFly is with John Maynard Keynes on this - "in the long run, we're all dead." It's just, he didn't mean gnawing on the bones of a beloved pet cat while wondering why we didn't ever pull our finger out on carbon dioxide mitigation in the 2010s...

Manchester's Food and Sustainability Question time.

Thurs June 10, Manchester. Eighty people tonight heard five speakers debate “Food and Sustainability” at the University of Manchester. The event, hosted by the now venerable EMERGE, covered packaging, carbon footprints, vegetarianism and supermarkets.

After brief opening remarks by Lucy Danger (including a shout out to the brilliant FareShare project), chair Mark Shayler (Eco3, previously Environment Manager Asda), gave a brief spiel (about embedded water etc) and introduced the five panelists; Stefan Stainsby (WRAP's Love Food Hate Waste Campaign)
Julie Bagnoli (Business Link & Isinglass Restaurant), Pat Foreman (Foods North West), Chris Shearlock (The Co-operative Group) and Debbie Ellen (Independent Researcher & Community Grower).
The first question was perhaps the best of the evening (that's not to say that things went downhill – for the most part they didn't).
What was the biggest threat to Manchester/Northwest in the coming decade(s)?
Chris Shearlock spoke of two- one being outbid for the “nice things” (exotic fruits etc) by the emerging economies,and also biodiversity loss (Plan B). He worried that the biodiversity crunch would come sooner than the climate crunch.
Debbie Ellen saw four interlinked problems 1) skills shortage (with lots of farmers being over 55, and only 5% under 35), 2) access to affordable land, 3) erratic weather and 4) lack of training in vegetarian and vegan cooking in the catering trade. She also gave a shout out to the Manchester Climate Change Action Plan (subject of the latest MCFly youtube video)
Pat Foreman endorsed the previous points and chipped in with concerns on the ability to innovate. Julie Bagnoli pointed to the tiny availability of locally grown food.
The next set of questions were, IMHO, a bit of a diversion- around packaging. It's emotive and obvious, but as Chris Shearlock pointed out, not the biggest 'carbon' part of the problem, and needs to be weighed against increased spoilage if food is under-packaged.
The chair kept things moving along fairly nicely, giving both audience and panel chances to expand and interact. Shearlock came across as very well-briefed (as you'd expect of the point-man for Britain's biggest farmer!), and adamant that life cycle analysis was crucial for looking at whether food flown in from Kenya was 'lower carbon' than locally produced. He defended Fairtrade while acknowledging it wasn't always the lowest carbon option (pointing out its other advantages, of a secure price for Majority World growers).
On whether vegetarianism/veganism was the most important action an individual could take, Shearlock and Ellen and Bagnoli said yes. Foreman, in keeping with her general “let the market decide/let's all be practisch” approach suggested it wasn't but rather thinking about what was bought and when, while Stefan Stainsby, as befits his WRAP role pointed to not wasting food while proclaiming he didn't want a nanny state.

MCFly ducked out slightly early (along with a few others who'd presumably found the two hour duration a bit punishing), so can't say if there were any final surprises.

How could the event have been improved? More vegetarian food during the mingler! Name badges and the various forms of soft coercive mingling that help English people overcome their reserve. Perhaps a tighter focus on some of the really pressing issues facing us. A few fun memes like “Permanent Global Summertime”. But nothing fundamental, nothing structural. This was no Dire Mountain.
Other impending food related events-
Create your own Abundance - June 12 2010
Feeding Manchester 4 - June 25, 2010

MCFly 46- "Aerial Dogfight"

Council Leader Sir Richard Leese has refused to rule out a third runway at Manchester Airport. Green Party activists wrote an open letter (see MCFly 44) that included a specific question: "When the current agreement not to construct a new runway expires will the Council be applying for planning permission to build a third runway?" In his Friday April 9 reply, Leese wrote "the Manchester Airport Master Plan sets out plans for the airport business developing over a 25-year period to 2030. This plan makes it clear that the second runway will be adequate to meet the forecast demand to 2030. The figures you refer to are from the Committee on Climate Change and were based on modelling conducted by a consultancy working on behalf of the CCC. It was not a prediction. It looked at range of scenarios for emissions and was not an official forecast of demand or based on any airport specific plan."

MCFly hired linguistics experts from Chomsky Associates to examine this text. They state that the word 'yes' or 'no' is nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats manifesto (see story at foot of page 1) states that Labour "took 18 months to come up with a strategy, and then let down the City by excluding aviation and Manchester Airport, owned by the Council, from the Climate Change Action Plan. Some 85% of the Airport’s CO2 emissions come from flights. The Airport cannot be given a free pass." That's the extent of their comment, with nothing concrete about ruling out a third runway, or about freezing expansion at the airport.

The Greens, who won't be running Manchester anytime soon, have "No expansion of the Airport" on their policy page. Marie Raynor, Chairman of Wythenshawe & Sale East Conservatives wrote last year "any further expansion of the Airport is, in our view, unwarranted, given its current size." [see correction at foot of this entry]. At time of going to press, it's unclear if this represents her view, or if official Manchester Conservative policy is to call for a freeze on Airport expansion. MCFly will pursue the story.

The open letter, the response and MCFly's analysis can be seen at www.manchesterclimatefortnightly.info/airportletter.html

The MCFly Says: Richard Leese believes "air travel is a vital part of people’s lives and crucial to becoming a truly competitive world city." This world city guff is inspired by American urban theorist Richard Florida (see his book "Cities and the Creative Class.") But climate change is going to come at us. Chunks of Florida- both the ideology and the place - are going to be flattened by hurricanes and underwater in a decade or three. Building hostages to fortune now, as oil peaks, is myopic. Our children will curse us.

CORRECTION: In the print version of MCFly 46, we wrongly attributed the Conservative's quote to Janet Clowes,the Conservative candidate for the parliamentary seat of Wythenshawe and Sale East. Thanks to the diligent reader who pointed this out.

MCFly 045- Do the right thing?

On Tuesday April 20, four candidates for local council seats will take part in a public debate entitled "Is Manchester City Council taking the right action on climate change?" Up for discussion will be aviation (of course; Manchester City Council owns 55% of the Airport), the Manchester Climate Change Action Plan (www.manchester.climate.com), adaptation, engagement and a host of other tricky topics.
Each speaker will be given 5 minutes to make their opening remarks. The moderator of the debate will then pose different questions to each of the four, before an "open floor" for questions from the audience.
The four are Cllr Richard Cowell, Executive Member for the Environment, who faces a tough battle to retain his Northenden seat; Gayle O'Donovan, who is trying to win Hulme for the Greens; Cllr Graham Shaw, Liberal Democrat representing Didsbury West, and the only one of the four not facing an election this year, and Yan Zhang, standing for the Conservatives in the City Centre. (It will be interesting to see if she casts doubt on the need for action in the same way the Conservative candidate for the parliamentary seat of Withington did at a recent hustings...)
The debate will take place at the Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St, central Manchester (behind the Central Library). It's free, and starts at 7.30pm sharp
http://www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk/april20th.html
MEANWHILE: MCFly wants YOUR answers to the question. "Is Manchester City Council taking the right action on Climate Change?" Keep it brief (less than 600 words), reasoned and printable. We will post the more thought-provoking ones on our website (with your name unless you specify anonymity- that means you Richard Sharland!)

SEE ALSO: Council Gritter (MCFLy 45 page 2) "Earth Hour- Can't Manchester City Council even get the empty gestures right?"