Catalytic Action 9: A Green Airport

The Executive of Manchester City Council- in effect the “Cabinet” of the 96 seat elected body, has recently accepted a report called the “Call to Action.”

A London-based consultancy called “Beyond Green” wrote the report, (for £32,000 plus expenses), which commits the Council to nine “catalytic actions.”

They are:

1. World-leading neighbourhood regeneration

2. Retrofitting Manchester's civic heritage

3. A business alliance for climate change

4. Low carbon energy infrastructure

5. Low Carbon Communities

6. A climate-ready Local Development Framework

7. The Manchester Prize

8. Greening the City: i-Trees

9. A green airport

We here at MCFly Towers think that these sorts of things go better with consultation. While we are waiting for the Council to announce just what it is going to do on this question, we will be posting one “catalytic action” per day on the MCFly blog, with a brief analysis. We invite the people of Manchester (and heck, why not beyond) to comment on these. We will pass on your comments to the Council.

That's not to say the other parts of the report aren't worthy of comment too- it's just that we have to start somewhere, and here is as good a place as any...

Catalytic Action 9: A green airport

"Aviation is one of the most controversial factors in climate change. Although currently accounting for a relatively small share of the UK’s carbon footprint, a Tyndall Centre analysis has shown that if air travel continues to grow at the expected rate, with realistic improvements in efficiency, then by 2050 air traffic alone will contribute the entirety of the carbon emissions the UK is likely to be able to allow.

"Manchester Airport is one of the principal components of economic growth in Manchester. The City Council’s agrees that global rates of air traffic growth are unsustainable in the long term but believes that it is not a realistic option for individual airports or cities to suppress their growth unilaterally ahead of international agreements that lead to orderly, market-based reductions in overall emissions and the contraction in air travel that they may bring about.

"For this reason, the City Council will continue to support the Airport’s growth plans while strongly advocating the inclusion of aviation and shipping emissions within the scope of a comprehensive international carbon cap-and-trade mechanism. The City Council will also press for the increased investment in major rail capacity that is likely to be an essential, practical substitute for reduced levels of air travel within the UK and northern Europe.

"Manchester Airport has committed to becoming carbon neutral in its site energy use and vehicle fuel – including major improvements in the way people access the airport from the surrounding area. This is a very stretching commitment, and the City Council will do everything it can to help the Airport achieve its aims – including involving the Airport in all the major actions identified in this plan."

OK, deep breath.

Surely this is not an "action", it is a process. It's going to take years to completely go carbon neutral, and I don't see quite what it is going to catalyse. Most of the people jetting off for various reasons won't notice, really, will they? So who else is this aimed at?

Surely "a green airport" is in any meaningful sense an oxymoron. Like "friendly fire" or a"healthy cigarette" (I'm old enough to remember cigarettes being advertised on television as 'low-tar'). Surely this late in the game we should be admitting this?

Surely the Call to Action could have mentioned that Manchester City Council owns 55% of the airport?

All that said, the airport is a convenient whipping boy...

Hopefully "Stop Expansion at Manchester Airport" will soon get its website updated to inform its readers of this "catalytic action" and produce its own analysis...

And also hopefully, Manchester Friends of the Earth will dust off its plans to write an alternative Master Plan for the Airport...

Concerned but not convinced: Manchester Council and the lack of public consultation

Today, MCFly went along to the latest council meeting dealing with the recent Call to Action to highlight problems with the report and its catalytic actions. We wanted to ask the Overview and Scrutiny Committee why the six-months public consultation promised in February 2008 had been replaced by the rather vague “Proud Of”campaign and Robbie Gillett from Manchester University Student Union was also at the meeting to ask about the council's 'Green Airport'.

Public consultation
MCFly directly asked about public consultation and told the committee that we didn't feel that the 'Proud Of' Campaign was good enough. Beverley Taylor, head of Environmental Campaigns, replied:
“It's not an action plan at the moment, it's a call to action and hopefully by the end of the year we'll have an action plan that has a lot of information but also has the response from all the different sectors.
“There is still quite a high number of people who don't understand what climate change is about or are mixed up about what its about. If I can quote the national MORI poll, I think the quote was 'concerned but not convinced'. It about targeting those people in a positive way.”

In contrast Vicky Rosin, the Assistant Chief Executive was very clear about the limits of public consultation with the council.
“What we decided is to bring forward a number of actions and show real leadership from the council. Consulting on the actions we intend to take forward is not something that's part of our exercise as consultation means we are prepared to change it and we intent absolutely on taking this action forward.”

Richard Cowell, the Executive member for the Environment also added that: “Yes, we've set a firm direction of where we want to go, we're not going to carry on consulting getting nowhere.”

It seems, that now that the catalytic actions have been decided the Council is absolutely unwilling to take on board any genuine public input which questions them (including the controversial Green Airport). The 'Proud Of' Campaign which seeks to engage more people in climate change is great but it is NOT six-months public consultation and is it NOT geared directly towards the report with a real ability to change it significantly. There has clearly been some slippage in the council's initial promise of real public input which remains unaccounted for.

Green Airport
Cllr Norman Lewis brought up the issue of 'Green Airport' stating that:
“If the proposed expansion of the airport happens as driver of economic growth, it wipes out all the hard work that might be out in by business to reduce CO2 emissions.”

Gillett also pointed out that “We are the generation that is going to be most affected by climate change and we want to act on it and work with the council, but if the council is going to pass the buck onto a national level then that will jeopardize the sincerity of how it is perceived amongst students.”

Cowell answered: “We will seek to look at aviation in terms of international perspective, not as a unilateral act.
“Concrete actions will be flowing from this [Call to Action], at the Executive meeting the Liberal Democrat Leader [Cllr Ashley] was calling for just purely symbolic, unilateral actions around the airport. I've used the word symbolic- that's not what were about. This report is based on our community strategy and on concrete catalytic actions we can take to deal with problem of CO2 emissions.”

One of the major issues MCFly had with the Call to Action report was the lack of concrete targets or outcomes from the catalytic actions. With regards to the airport, the report itself acknowledged that any direct impact on CO2 emissions was “subject to airport decisions and other factors.” Furthermore only 4 out of the 9 catalytic actions had any significant impact on CO2 emission. In fact, the Manchester Prize which was action number 7 had no direct impact was considered simply 'totemic'.

Action Now!?
Cowell reiterated the need for immediate action stating that climate change is a “problem we need to start addressing now.
“If you're suggesting that we hold off, hold off, hold off and hold off until there is international agreement on aviation, I don't think that's the right approach to take. We have had 17 principles brought in last year, we've has a great deal of work put into this document and we're ready now to get on with actioning now, to start making a difference now. I'm not prepared to hold off and hold off.”

However, as reported by MCFly on a number of occasions, the council announced the 17 climate principles back in February 2008 and promised a Climate Strategy in the same year with six-months public consultation. This didn't happen and almost a year later the 'Call to Action' has been released with the final detailed action report now expected December 2009. Planned to coincide with the international summit at Copenhagen, we might add..