Making the Connections on Climate
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MAKING THE CONNECTIONS ON CLIMATE HHOWOW CICITYTY RREGIONSEGIONS CAN JOJOININ THTHEE Wellington House, T 0113 251 7204 40-50 Wellington Street, E [email protected] DDOTSOTS BBETWEENETWEEN TRANSPTRANSPORT,ORT, EENERGYNERGY Leeds LS1 2DE www.urbantransportgroup.org AND TTHEHE BBUILTUILT ENVIENVIRONMENTRONMENT 2 Making the connections on climate – How city regions can join the dots between transport, energy and the built environment The Urban Transport Group represents the seven strategic transport bodies which between them serve more than twenty million people in Greater Manchester (Transport for Greater Manchester), Liverpool City Region (Merseytravel), London (Transport for London), Sheffield City Region (South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive), Tyne and Wear (Nexus), West Midlands (Transport for West Midlands) and West Yorkshire (West Yorkshire Combined Authority). The Urban Transport Group is also a wider professional network with associate members in Strathclyde, Bristol and the West of England, Tees Valley, Nottingham and Northern Ireland. Report authors: Jonathan Bray and Clare Linton November 2019 Contents 3 CONTENTS 1 Introduction: Why we need to make more connections on climate .....................................................................4 2 The context .........................................................................................5 3 Making the connections on transport and energy .....................8 4 Making the connections between transport and the adaptation and decarbonisation of the built environment ..................................................................... 16 5 Strategic approaches to making the connections on climate – Munich and Nottingham ........................................ 24 6 Conclusion .......................................................................................... 30 7 References .......................................................................................... 32 4 Making the connections on climate – How city regions can join the dots between transport, energy and the built environment WHY WE NEED TO MAKE MORE CONNECTIONS ON CLIMATE 1 The world is facing a climate crisis with rising The good news too is that many of the projects temperatures already leading to more extreme and policies that feature in the report not only weather conditions. In response, both at an either reduce carbon emissions, or improve international, national and local level, climate resilience, they also have multiple wider demanding targets are being set for reducing benefits including: greenhouse gas emissions and climate • Cost savings, including through lower emergency declarations are being made. energy costs, and reducing the costs of If these ambitions are to be met, then we need disruption, clean-up and repair by reducing to move beyond a siloed approach to reducing impacts of flooding and other extreme carbon emissions from different sectors and weather events sub-sectors in isolation and instead seek to • Creating good jobs and contributing to make more connections between those sectors good growth at the level of both overarching policy making, as well as at the individual project level. • Making cities more attractive places to live, work, visit, spend time and invest in As the Urban Transport Group, this report focuses in particular on the connections that • Contributing to wider public health goals can be made on climate at the city region level on improving mental and physical health between transport and energy, and between transport and the decarbonisation and • Improved air quality adaptation of the built environment. In doing • Higher levels of job satisfaction from so, this report also suggests both practical employees and customer satisfaction from interventions that can be made on a host of transport users different types of projects as well as profiling how a city can make these connections in an There may also be opportunities to build in increasingly systematic way - using Nottingham climate connections to transport projects that and Munich as case studies. are being progressed anyway, and at low cost – if there is the awareness of the options in the This report does not aim to provide a first place. Building awareness of those options comprehensive treatise on all the issues around is one of the goals this report seeks to achieve. climate change, transport, the built environment and energy. There are many other reports which In short, it’s time to make the connections on do this. What this report aims to do instead is to climate! provide those working for city region transport authorities with a source of inspiration, ideas and a sense of agency on an issue that can seem overwhelming in its scale and urgency. The context 5 THE CONTEXT 2 Transport now the biggest source of UK carbon emissions... In the UK, CO2 emissions are falling, now at 37% below the 1990 baseline level1, and fell 41% between 2007 and 20162. Despite substantial reductions in CO2 emissions over the last three decades, transport emissions have barely fallen, down just 2% on 1990 levels in 2017, the year when transport overtook energy supply as the largest emitting sector3. Overall, transport now accounts for 27% of UK greenhouse gas emissions4. The UK government targets on carbon… Cities and carbon… The UK was one of the first countries it the world According to C40 Citiesi, cities account for more to establish legally binding carbon emission than 70% of global CO2 emissions and consume reduction targets, in the 2008 Climate Change over two thirds of the world’s energy, despite Act5. This mandated emission reductions of 80% covering just 2% of the earth’s landmass9. And the by 2050. In 2019, the Committee on Climate impacts of climate change are sometimes felt Change recommended that this be extended to a more intensely in urban environments10. Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions target for Cities account for 54% of the population in 2050 in order to meet the commitments under the UK, and 46% of emissions, and cities have the Paris Agreement6. This recommendation was reduced their emissions faster than the national incorporated into law as an amendment to the average11. Figure 1 shows the emission 2008 Climate Change Act in June 20197. And in reductions achieved in key UK cities in the May 2019, the UK Parliament declared a climate ten years up to 201612. change emergency, recognising the scale of the challenge we face8. i. C40 Cities is a network of more than 90 megacities committed to acting on climate change. 6 Making the connections on climate – How city regions can join the dots between transport, energy and the built environment CO2 EMISSIONS PER CAPITA 2007 – 2016 (TONS) 9 8 7 6 5 Birmingham Newcastle 4 Leeds Sheffield Liverpool 3 National Average emissions per capital (Tons) 2 London Manchester CO 2 1 0 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Year Figure 1 – Reduction in CO2 emissions per capita for UK cities (grey dashed line shows national average), data taken from Centre for Cities Data Tool13 The impact of a warming world on city regions… Climate change will likely lead to the following Summer temperatures could regularly reach effects in the UK: 38.5°C by the 2040s17. Urban heat island effects mean that heat stress risks are more severe in • hotter, drier summers cities, with heat-related deaths projected to rise • milder, wetter winters from 2,000 a year at present, up to 7,000 in • rising sea levels 205018. Urban green spaces can help to mitigate • more extreme weather events14 heating effects, reducing air temperatures by as much as 8°C19, and help to manage drainage This in turn will lead to more droughts and issues by slowing and containing run off from flooding15. Some of the effects of climate heavy rainfall. change will be more extreme in urban environments. The need for more effective It will also be important to design new management of water resources and sewage infrastructure, and modify existing infrastructure, to systems will become more pressing in the be resilient to the impacts of climate change and coming decades, with heavier rainfall having future weather conditions, anticipating the risks 20 an impact on drainage and flow16. and taking appropriate steps to adapt to them . The context 7 How cities are responding… The obstacles and opportunities for city regions… In response, more cities are pledging ambitious net zero targets as well as declaring climate However, many of the drivers for how fast emergencies21. London, for example, has carbon emissions will be reduced are outside pledged to reduce emissions by 60% by 2025 of the control of local and city government as part of its commitment to C40 Cities22 and including the pace at which the electricity grid the London Assembly has passed a motion to is decarbonised, vehicle taxation policies, as bring forward plans for the city to be carbon well as how quickly the cost of green vehicle neutral from 2050 to 203023. Mayor Sadiq Khan technologies falls and how reliable that declared a climate emergency before the UK technology becomes. The UK is also highly Parliament in December 2018, stating: “We are centralised with Whitehall Departments keeping in the midst of a climate emergency which control of key funding levers (often micro poses a threat to our health, our planet and managing them through competition funding). our children and grandchildren’s future”24. In addition, rail and bus are largely privatised and key utilities (water and energy) are also Examples elsewhere