The UK Government has launched a new £3.5m initiative aimed at connecting the nation’s largest cities in a collective effort to tackle climate challenges. Under the project, which was unveiled on Thursday (31 January) by the department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), a string of ‘city climate commissions’ will be created in some of the UK’s largest cities, beginning with Edinburgh, Leeds and Belfast. The cities will serve as research hubs for low-carbon technologies and climate mitigation and adaptation measures, sharing best practice with each other and creating local-level solutions that can be scaled up or replicated. Emphasis will be placed on innovative energy technologies which could help decarbonise heat and transport. Overall, the scheme, called the Place-based Climate Action Network (P-CAN), is aimed at helping cities play their part in the UK meeting the aims of the Paris Agreement. It has been founded in the wake of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) landmark report, which laid bare the dramatic differences between the Agreement’s two trajectories – 1.5C and 2C.
Edie 1st Feb 2019 read more »
