The University of Liverpool will be taking part in our seminar series as a member of the Local Panel for the 3rd seminar which will take place in the Isle of Man Ferry Terminal with Bristol as the European Green Capital city. Engage held an open public meeting on 2nd July 2024 in the presence of the City Council’s Sustainability Manager Simon Mansfield at Love Lane Brewery in the Baltic Triangle.
Simon began by drawing our attention to rising sea levels, mentioning the recent episode of flooding in West Kirby, and increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Global temperatures are rising beyond the 1990 agreed levels which is bad for all of us and gives the context in which we are operating in the city. Liverpool has set a target of 2030 to have reduced our CO2 emissions to a sustainable level.
The Council is committed to a carbon reduction programme which will involve a culture change across the council and the city and works closely with the net-zero planning which will explore heat networks amongst many other initiatives. Simon identified 5 barriers to achieving these goals:
- Economic and investment barriers
- Capacity and skills barriers
- End-user/citizen barriers
- Grid barriers
- Development systems and planning policy barriers
It was good to hear how the work of those engaged in sustainability was based on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. It was said that Bristol has the best sustainable ethos and culture of any UK city and it was a real coup to have them coming to Liverpool during the seminar series.
There followed question from the audience on a variety of topics many of which will be addressed in the seminars later in the year: pollution in the River Mersey, food production and aquaculture, community gardening initiatives, the impact of apartment living and its contribution to carbon emissions, need to educate people for this new reality, the challenges of heat pumps.
There was also some input from the Chair of Engage into the achievements of Engage during the past few years: ENGAGE REPORT 2024
Image from University of Liverpool website, Sustainability page: Climate Plan