The PCAN team, working with other researchers from Queen's University Belfast, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Leeds, has produced a suite of net-zero carbon roadmaps for the three cities covered by our core climate commissions in Leeds, Edinburgh and Belfast.

Each of the roadmaps shows the pathway to net-zero emissions for the respective city's climate change target. For Leeds and Edinburgh, this is 2030; Belfast has the national UK target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The roadmaps illustrate each city's share of the global carbon budget to keep to 1.5C of warming (the level of global temperature rise at which we risk triggering dangerous climate change) and show when, at current rates of emissions, this budget will be used up.

They also set out cost-effective, more ambitious, and innovative interventions that will help each city reach net-zero by its target date, and demonstrate the benefits - especially financial (in terms of energy savings) and years of extra employment - that doing these actions would result in.

The Net-Zero Carbon Roadmap for Edinburgh was published on 7 December 2020 and  the Belfast Net-Zero Roadmap was launched on 15 December alongside Belfast's first Resilience Strategy.

The Leeds Net-Zero Carbon Roadmap was published at a webinar on 7 January 2021 hosted by the Leeds Climate Commission, which also featured responses from representatives from the public sector (Leeds City Council), private sector (Business in the Community) and civic sector (Friends of the Earth), as well as members of the Leeds Climate Change Citizens' Jury.

Each of the Roadmaps has a colourful infographic illustrating the pathway to net-zero for the respective cities, as well as the benefits in terms of energy savings and jobs from investing in the cost-effective measures to achieve this. (Available as pdfs in the downloads.)

Image: Photo by Jesse Bowser on Unsplash