Extinction Rebellion - "Greater Manchester is £21.3 million overspent on its carbon budget"
- Helen Clarke
- Jan 13
- 3 min read
Helen Clarke
Chris J is part of Extinction Rebellion and is involved in both the Didsbury/Withington group as well as central Manchester.
What are the objectives currently for XR in Greater Manchester
We are made up of a number of local groups, which have individual actions and come together to co-support on those actions and to organise actions in Central Manchester such as the Insure our Survival march through the city centre.
Our aims remain those of XR overall. We have also protested outside the BBC about their low level of reporting of climate issues and protest.
We have done two citizens assemblies in Didsbury with other local climate groups, one on the Mersey and Dirty Water and one on Cean Air, to demonstrate how they work and create joint plans and proposals.
Our main local aims have been about public awareness through outreach, supporting local actions such as Ryebank Felds campaign, protest outside United Utilities and the 'die in' at Manchester Museum to mark the State of Nature report.
A secondary aspect of the outreach and actions is to increase the numbers within the groups and to involve people in both local actions and the national actions and marches such as the Big One, restore Nature Now and Insure Our survival.
At Manchester level we have done three Insure Our Survival actions, two involving a protest march with theatre drum band and choir singing outside Manchester offices of Insurance companies.
Insure Our Survival is about persuading those insurance companies to stop insuring oil and gas projects. Two have also involved occupying but not blocking the lobbies of those offices for a specific time.
Thursday 31 October was a protest march to some of the offices, again with theatre and drum band, as well as public leafleting and one lobby occupation. Finally, we have taken part in Defend our juries protests outside courts and when XR people come to court for offences from the past.
Are the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) doing enough - and if not, what needs to be done
Although the GM local authorities have all declared a climate emergency (albeit Tameside less so) and created plans to achieve net zero, those plans have often been very weak and progress very slow.
We have campaigned by approaching local councillors and officers and being involved in any local climate action activities, to draw public attention to lack of progress. Climate Emergency Manchester do this very thoroughly and create quarterly progress reports.
We have also gone to the Greem summit each year organised by GMCA to protest lack of progress. You can see the lack of progress from their own reports, they should have reduced emissions by 49% but only 16% achieved by this year.
GMCA produce GM wide reports is £21.3 million overspent on its carbon budget to 2022. The plans are simply insufficient in the first place and with insufficient progress, as well as a lack of compensating actions.
GMCA are poor at holding the Manchester airport group to account for their net zero plans, including their dependence on future technology solutions.
What is your view on the crossover between XR and Just Stop Oil
XR has similar aims to JSO but differ in tactics. XR declared on 1/1/23 that we would temporarily suspend disruption to the general public, although keeping it for Government and corporates.
Many people in JSO came from XR and we have worked in partnership such as on the Restore Nature Now march. I think they have the same goal just different approaches. We don't overlap on those approaches.
What's your view on the new Labour administration and its approach to climate change
From our local discussions, a lot of disappointment - lack of urgency about the climate and nature emergencies, lack of investment in sustainable energy and actions, little about insulation in new and retro fitting homes, not stopping some of the oil and gas exploration projects approved by the last Government but not fully started, such as Rosebank.
Also turning to Carbon capture and massive investment in technology that will be slow arriving and may not be effective, and a lot of which will go to the oil and gas companies who continue to create the problem. Finally little about reforming the protest laws especially their more recent changes.
On the positive side, appointing the nature envoy, stopping the Cumbrian coal mine, some of Ed Miliband’s activity and ministry, more on planning for sustainable energy, the slight increase in the oil and gas windfall tax (only 3%), but removal of the set off provision whereby the companies could offset new investment against the tax.
A very mixed response so far.