Is Bristol the greenest city in the UK?

Well, according to a report recently released by Good Move, Bristol is the greenest city in the UK for 2019.

How did it come to this verdict? 
Well the choices and criteria are not perhaps the best and most exhaustive list in the world, but let's not overly criticise and take a bit of a further look....

Firstly, Good Move only looked at ten UK cities to begin with, and those were selected based on the ten with the most green space within them - which may be assumed to give them a head-start over other possible cities. Once they had that list, it seems they looked at four key criteria to rank them;

• Carbon emissions from the city
• Recycling rates (average domestic rate)
• Gas consumption (average per capita) - but not electricity?
• Number of Green Party councillors!?! 
• (Surely this is more of a reflection of how good / bad the local Green Party are at canvassing in that area - and also implies that no other party cares about the environment [which may or may not be true])

Anyway, what result did this lead to? 
Well the post title has kind of given that bit away - it was, of course, Bristol. And it's not that this is a bad choice per se; it topped the charts of their calculations, with an average 47% domestic recycling rate amongst other things. 

To be fair, it has done much in recent years to up its green credentials - it became a Fair Trade City in 2005; by 2014/15 it had carbon reductions of 38% from a 2005 baseline, meaning it hit its 2020 target five years early; and also in 2015, it got the European Green Capital Award - the first British city to win - recognising it as a happy, healthy and more environmentally friendly place to live and work.

Bristol was also one of the first local authorities to commit to purchasing renewable energy in its mix. It had an initial target of reaching 15% renewables by 2010, which it did in part by switching all 34,000 of its streetlights to this from January 2007. The council also committed to investing £1.4 m in improving the energy efficiency of its council properties through the '90s and '00s.

How did the other cities fair?
So we can see that Bristol did at least have some claim to be justified in winning this accolade, but what did the other British cities do right, and wrong (besides not having enough green space to be considered in the first place), to get their place in the top ten?

Edinburgh did enough to impress their way into second place, based in large part around their impressive 49 hectares of green space in the city - the most in the country. But at the other end you have London in 9th place, predominantly dragged that low by its huge carbon footprint (actually seven times higher than the city that eventually came in 10th!).

And who came at the bottom end?
That honour went to Birmingham! And they may feel hard done by for several reasons. Firstly, as mentioned above - their carbon emission rate was actually around seven times better than that of London. Birmingham's undoing in this ranking was due to its very poor domestic recycling rate (22%) and relatively low levels of green space compared to the other contenders (only 24.6 hectares). 

The second reason for the city to feel a bit peeved is that the way that this has been reported would imply that they are the least environmentally friendly city in the UK, rather than the worst from a list of ten (and based on somewhat spurious criteria).

The Good Move Top Ten:

1. Bristol
2. Edinburgh
3. Manchester (targeting being zero-carbon by 2038)
4. Sheffield
5. Bradford
6. Liverpool
7. Glasgow (had the first Low Emission Zone in Scotland)
8. Leeds (aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030)
9. London
10. Birmingham

Another version:
To contrast with the Good Move list, in early 2019, First Mile (a waste management company) put together their own list of greenest cities. So what conclusions did they come up with?

Well firstly, their list of criteria certainly appears a little deeper; the looked at the number of Electric Vehicle Charging Points (EVCPs), Recycling per capita, amount of green space, Air Quality, pollution levels, efforts around reduction of plastic use and also fast-fashion consumption.

So, how does their list compare? 
First thing to note is that only six of the cities that made the Good Move top ten, make it in here - and, they show up in quite a different order. London didn't even make the top ten - coming in at #11 - largely owing to its horrific air quality problems! But for the record, this is how the First Mile top ten looked;

1. Edinburgh
2. Aberdeen
3. Glasgow
4. York
5. Oxford
6. Bristol
7. Newcastle
8. Leeds
9. Sheffield
10. Birmingham

An incredible Scottish 1-2-3! Given the emphasis that the Scottish government appears to be giving Scotland as the place to come for sustainable businesses (presumably at least partially with an eye to the future, as North Sea oil/gas starts to decline) and the pride it has in its fantastic natural landscapes, this verdict is possibly not so surprising.

Fairly obviously, some of this will always be subjective too. I could devise a list with a completely different set of criteria and weighting factors and end up with another version. I haven't visited all of the cities mentioned here, in recent times, so giving too much of a subjective opinion now would not be all that fair. Spending a lot of time in Birmingham for work, I could say - is that really a better place than London? But that would neglect that when I visit London or Birmingham, it tends to only be to certain parts, and these lists look at the cities as a whole.

What do you think? What cities would you like to see in a top ten - and what criteria do you think should be used to judge?

Research:
https://goodmove.co.uk/blog/how-bristol-became-uks-greenest-city/ 
https://goodmove.co.uk/britains-green-cities/
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/uk-greenest-cities-scotland-top-three_uk_5c50392de4b0d9f9be69086e?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20vc2VhcmNoP3E9Z29vZCttb3ZlK2dyZWVuZXN0K2NpdHkrdWsraHVmZitwb3N0JnFzPW4mZm9ybT1RQlJFJnNwPS0xJnBxPWdvb2QrbW92ZStncmVlbmVzdCtjaXR5K3VrK2h1ZmYrcG9zdCZzYz0xLTM2JnNrPSZjdmlkPUI3RTY1QjRENDE1MTQ5OTk4MDZDQTEwRjhERkZCNjQ5&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKhKmAkIFJSZOSOR_j1f773yloi3kDnJxIym-lTkgZjfdq8xKP89CW38ZEg3i0ZPUhaLfnUbbT6CKH3mp9ojEMslM1HL7Dd0U8P6bCXu95h7mlizo4zGTP6Dw-Jp8aU2YJ9rSeu7iVe_AstL8g29k8MZQ5XiVwFQMSjhdehddsi4

UK Farming and climate change

A bit more this time, on agriculture and the impact it has on climate change, and what the industry needs to do to do its bit in the UK.

Setting the scene:
UK farms are said to produce around 46.5m tCO2e in GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions each year; that is, around 10% of the total UK emissions. But additionally, we import around 48% of our food, so the carbon footprint from food production is probably much, much higher (and rising). A WWF-UK / Food Climate Resource Network report in 2010 said the actual UK footprint of farming could be more like 30%.

The relationship between farming and climate change has become somewhat fractious over the years. Farmers say that there is a distinct 'anti-meat' agenda out there, with Guy Smith, Deputy President of the NFU (National Farmers Union) saying, "The vegan lobby are hijacking the climate debate."

The politics can be quite confusing. The Conservative government of the 1990s, for example, told farmers that if they improved their standards, that people would be happy to pay a premium for that additional sustainability and welfare. A ban was put in place on sow stalls that restricted the movement of pregnant pigs - it was, the government said - what the consumer wanted. So farmers invested the money to overcome the law, but they were thwarted; there was no such restriction on imported pork and so that consumer support never happened, as people were happy to go for the cheaper (imported) option!

IPCC report:
The NFU, which represents 55,000 British farmers, says that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on 'Change and Land', has been misinterpreted by many - and especially the BBC - they say, basically boiling it down to 'eat less meat and save the planet.' They point that the actual text of the report says;

"Balanced diets, featuring plant based foods, such as those based on coarse grains, legumes, fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and animal sourced food produced in resilient, sustainable and low GHG emission systems, present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health."

The industry claim that beef produced in western Europe, for example, is around 2.5 times more efficient in how carbon is managed than the global average.

This gets into another contentious issue. Beef production is the perceived bad boy of agriculture, in climate change terms, as it is a high producer of methane and nitrogen oxides - which are more damaging GHG's than CO2. While carbon dioxide takes a bit of a backseat in this discussion, scientists don't necessarily agree on the outcomes.

Methane was responsible for 56% of farming GHG emissions in 2017, and NO for 31%. This comes from the complexities of soil and microbial processes. The debate surrounds how much weighting they are given in the scientific outcomes. There are those who say that since they are the big GHG emitters, they must be weighted highly; the flip side is that their effects are easier to reverse, as they don't remain in the atmosphere as long, so the weighting should be lowered somewhat.

The NFU and the future:
The NFU vision, set out in September 2019, says that this 46.5m tonnes of emissions could be removed completely in the next 20 years. They say that;

• More efficient production will remove 11.5m tonnes
• Farmland as a store for carbon will remove 9m tonnes
• A boost to renewables and bioenergy will account for a whopping 22m tonnes

On that last point, countryside online say that farmers have already diversified to renewables production, to the point where they provide power for 10 million homes.

The NFU say that if farmers are offered rewards, then this is all achievable.

But there has been no real progress on reducing farming emissions since 2008. A 2013 target to plant 5,000ha of trees a year has also proved difficult; in England in the year up to March 2019, only 1,420ha was planted (according to the Woodland Trust). Guy Smith says, "We are happy with trees on farmland as long as it doesn't significantly curtail production. [Otherwise] you'll just offshore the carbon and they will continue ripping down the Amazon rainforest."

Countryside Online say that in 2017 there were 35,000 agri-environmental schemes happening with farmers in England, all helping to protect the environment and enhance biodiversity. 

The dairy industry has produced a Dairy Roadmap for 2020 - 2025, setting environmental targets, such as around fertiliser use and hedgerow protections. They claim that GHG emissions from the UK dairy industry have been reduced by 24% since 1990, and that most farmers now undertake nutrient and manure management programmes to minimise water pollution.

The Royal Society for the encouraging of Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce (RSA) Food, Farming & Countryside Commission has a report out that says farming and food systems must be sustainable by 2030 to help with tackling climate change and meeting government targets.

They say meat must come from 'sustainable livestock', and reflect the NFU claim, that farmers could make these big changes over the next decade if they are given the right backing. 

One example would be agro-forestry, where trees are mixed with crop and grazing fields. One farmer engaged in this practice, Ben Raskin, says, "There's a lot of evidence that if an animal is sheltered it's more productive - so its' spending less energy keeping its core warm so it can put more energy into producing milk or putting on weight, which is good, obviously, for production on the farm."

The Wrap:
So, what we see is a need to strike a balance between the need for sustainability and putting in place measures to help reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change; whilst simultaneously dealing with the ever growing demand for cheap (or at least reasonably priced) food.

As with other industries facing the climate change conundrum, it will be a mix of innovation, legislation and willing participation that will lead to UK farming successfully reaching their targets (or otherwise).

Research:
'Out to pasture?' Transform magazine - November 2019
https://www.countrysideonline.co.uk/food-and-farming/protecting-the-environment/how-are-british-farmers-helping-to-tackle-climate-change/ 
https://news.sky.com/story/make-uk-farming-sustainable-to-help-save-the-planet-report-11763956 

Will we see the wood for the trees?

Following on from a recent election based post - I was wondering if some of the, frankly massive, tree planting pledges being put forward by the various parties in the run up to the general election, are particularly realistic to achieve?

But first, let us go back a few years to see where the land lay....

The last pledge:

The government's last pledge on tree planting was 11 million trees a year in England. In 2016, Stuart Goodall, Chief Executive of the UK forestry industry body Confor, told the Environmental, Forestry & Rural Affairs committee in Westminster, that this target was most certainly achievable, but not with the current grant system in place at the time.

The target represented a shift in England to get from 10% tree cover, up to around 12% by 2060 - that is about 50,000 hectares a year. Goodall pointed out that the grant system was "overly complex and bureaucratic." It was felt that there had been a steady disconnect between policy and the realities of the timber industry over the previous 20 years.

Confor pointed to a number of new options that would be needed to get things going again. This would include ideas like productive mixed forestry being introduced in some areas of northern England where farmers were under pressure, and so something like this may be of interest. They also pointed to the out of date view of conifer planting being 'demonised' - without it, the timber industry would be facing major issues with sourcing supplies by the mid 2030's.

Then there was also a need for more experience in dealing with large scale schemes from the Forestry Commission and other such bodies, as many of them had not had to deal with such applications in many years. Sir William Worsley, Chairman of the National Forest for the East Midlands, said, "To look at hardwoods as being attractive and softwoods as unattractive and commercial is the wrong way to look at it. Well managed commercial forestry can be very beautiful."

The big pledges!

So since the last government targets were set, things have moved on at pace. Climate change is now front and centre on the agenda, in fact for some groups it will be the second or third most thing on their minds when voting this month.

The legislation in June of this year, making net-zero carbon emissions a legal commitment for the UK by 2050, meant that people (including those in power) suddenly had to give some thought on how to achieve this rather daunting target!

Step forward the humble tree! A thing of great beauty and of great importance for many ecosystems - now realised as a potential lifeline for achieving carbon emission reductions, through their ability to sequester CO2.

Oak Tree (photo: Wikimedia)

• Conservatives: pledging 30 million trees a year
• Lib Dems and SNP: both pledging to plant 60m a year
• Greens: they have gone for a pledge of 70m a year
• Labour: reckon they can plant 100m a year for the next 20 years. That's 2 billion more trees!

Now, there are some other issues around planting this number of trees, like can we provide enough nursery stock of suitable native trees to meet any of these demands? And where are such numbers going to be planted? Many sparsely populated areas, like say northern Scotland, actually don't necessarily need huge numbers of trees - northern Scotland would actually largely benefit from protecting and enhancing its peat bogs (another great CO2 sequesterer).

But lets just concentrate on the sheer numbers and not some of these other technicalities, that will have to be covered in great depth in the next few years, as one of these parties is actually going to have to try and enact what it has promised........ (or not)

The Labour party pledge represents planting a quarter of a million trees every day!

To put that in perspective, in the year to March 2019, 13,400ha was planted in the UK (11,200 of that was in Scotland). But there is some historic precedent of sorts, as in the 1980s we did manage to plant at a rate of around 30,000ha a year.

Depending on tree species, habitat, terrain etc., you can plant between 1,000 and 2,500 trees per hectare, so taking a reasonable average, that means 30,000ha would be covered by around 50 million trees.

The Woodland Trust say that things need to change fundamentally for large-scale planting to happen;

• More people need to get involved in planting - at national and local level, and in statutory bodies
• There needs to be a big boost in tree stocks
• There needs to be more money / grants for farmers and landowners to encourage them to plant trees
• Natural reforestation must be encouraged alongside planting

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has stated in its guidance that the UK needs a net gain of 32,000ha of trees per year for 30 years to help hit the net-zero emissions target by 2050. That is 1.5 billion trees. That would see the overall tree coverage for the UK going from 13% to 17% in that time - but that compares with an EU average of 35% tree cover.

Confor has analysed the tree planting pledges of the main parties - here is a little of what it has said on the four main national parties; 

Conifer forest (photo: Wikimedia)

• Conservatives: they need to do much more to meet the targets. It points out that they failed to reach the last, much more modest target, of 11m trees a year over 5 years.
• Labour: they need big leadership commitments to make any progress on such a target. Confor likes the recognition Labour have given to what the forestry / timber industries can do to help meet their green jobs pledge.
• Lib Dems: their targets are in line with what Confor have been suggesting is needed, but Confor say that their processes will need to be much improved. They also like the commitment to use more timber in house construction. Their position could be interesting if they end up holding a balance of power after the election.
• Greens: their targets, like the Lib Dems, line up with Confor ambitions, and will need similar overhaul of current processes. They also like their emphasis on integration between farming and forestry.

Research:

https://www.confor.org.uk/news/latest-news/ge2019-tree-planting-pledges-analysed/ 

http://www.confor.org.uk/news/latest-news/planting-targets-achievable-but-grant-system-not-fit-for-purpose/ 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/50591261 

Is Ryanair really so green?

I stumbled on a story recently, from earlier this summer, where Ryanair has claimed to be the greenest airline in Europe.

(Wikipedia)

They say that their latest carbon figures show that they are emitting an average of 66g CO2 per passenger, per km flown. This is down from 82g ten years ago, and they have promised it will be down close to 60g per passenger by 2030. According to their figures, this compares to Lufthansa's (Europe's biggest aviation group after Ryanair) rate of 120g, and 110-119g posted by Turkish Airlines and IAG (owners of Aer Lingus and British Airways) - while budget rivals EasyJet, are at around 70-79g.

The 66g figure comes from 14.2 million passengers carried a total of 17,789m km, emitting around 1,167kt (kiloton) of carbon emissions. They point to an average family car emitting 248g/km and the EU target of 130g/km - both helping the claim that they are the cleanest airline in Europe. They point to their high load factors (seats sold) of 96%, as compared to the 80-85% rates posted by most other major airlines; and also that they have one of the youngest airline fleets in the sector (thy are all 737's with an average age of 6.5 years).

Ryanair say that they pay their environmental taxes to dispel the myth that the aviation does not pay such debts. Chief Marketing Officer, Kenny Jacobs, says, "[66g is] almost half the rate of other flag carrier European airlines..... Ryanair paid over €540m in environmental taxes in 2018 and will pay over €630m in 2019. This equates to €4.12 per passenger, which is 11% of Ryanair's average air fare."

New Boeing 737 MAX200 (Wikipedia)

They are now investing $20bn in their fleet, with 210 all new Boeing 737 "gamechanger" (Max200) on order, that will replace existing 737-800 models. The new aircraft will carry 4% more passengers, whilst burning 16% less fuel, 20% less CO2 and 40% less noise emissions. 

That 2% of Europe's greenhouse gas emissions come from flying, does not seem to be disputed. Aviation emissions have risen by 26.3% in the last five years in 2018 it increased by 3.9% year on year - at a time when all other industries in the Emissions Trading Scheme have dropped by 4.1%.

Jacobs says the solution is not with the airlines - "If Brussels wants to reduce CO2 by 5% in the next 12 months they just need to regulate air traffic control instead of leaving it to member states." This, they say, is because disruption caused by air traffic shortages and strikes causes aircraft to have to take longer routes, meaning they burn up to 20% more fuel.

Ryanair hits the Top Ten!

But these claims came soon after, in April, they hit the European Top Ten - for the worst emitters! This is an unwanted hit - until now, this had been the exclusive domain of coal plants. Ryanair's carbon emissions went up by 6.9% in 2018, and have in fact gone up 49% overall since 2013. Now of course, absolute emissions rates will almost always punish organisations that grow - which is why Ryanair, as most other companies, use normalised data (i.e. they divide the emissions by a normalising factor - usually turnover, but in this case in a per passenger way).

A study of small European airports by Transport & Environment, claims that the EU has effectively allowed Ryanair's carbon emissions to keep on rising, and has also subsidised many of the failing small airports across Europe. This, they say, is facilitating the rise in emissions. They say there is documented evidence that 35 such airports are receiving subsidies, and 17 deal with fewer than 500,000 passengers per year (the conservative estimate for profitability). Paris Vatry, for example, had only 108,000 passengers in 2017, and received €3m in subsidies. (Full report can be found here).

Andrew Murphy of Transport & Environment, says, "With governments struggling to rein in the sector's climate impact, the first step should be calling a halt to subsidies which are adding more fuel to the fire.... Ending state aid is a start but we also need to end aviation's tax holiday and encourage the uptake of zero emissions aviation fuels."

So - are Ryanair's claims nothing but greenwash - or are they unfairly picked on for being a healthy and expanding company? What is true, is that the whole sector, from governments and industry bodies, through to the airlines, aircraft manufacturers and airport operators, all need to play a part in this. We still fly (and more than ever) - and this trend is unlikely to be bucked anytime soon; so what else can be done across the board to remedy this major issue?

Research:

https://ukaviation.news/ryanair-cuts-co2-emissions-to-just-66g-per-passenger/ 

https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/ryanair-pollution-eu-top-10-polluters-list-first-airline-carbon-emissions-504373 

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/ryanair-claims-it-is-greenest-airline-in-europe-on-emissions-1.3914840 

http://bright-green.org/2019/07/21/the-eu-is-subsidising-ryanairs-carbon-emissions/