01The UK’s cities matter for delivering net zero

The UK has adopted the target of reaching clean power by 2030¹ and net zero by 2050.^{2, 3} Despite the UK making progress on the latter in the last two decades, the latest Climate Change Committee progress report finds that the UK is off track, particularly when it comes to emissions from buildings and transport.⁴ There is still much work to be done.

Different places will play different roles in helping the UK achieve this target. This is because the built environment has a big influence over the way that people live their lives. For example, the car is much more convenient to use in rural Northumberland where people, amenities and jobs are very spread out and congestion is lower than it is in central Newcastle, where the opposite is the case. And a new apartment in central Manchester will use less energy than a new detached house in Cheshire.

It is for this reason that cities have lower greenhouse gas emissions than non-urban areas. Urban areas account for more than half of the UK’s population, but only 41 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.⁵ The result, as Figure 1 shows, is that emissions per capita are around 40 per cent lower in urban areas than non-urban ones.

Cities have already made a disproportionate contribution to the reductions in national emissions over the last two decades. As Figure 2 shows, urban emissions have fallen by 53 per cent over the last 17 years compared to 43 per cent in non-urban areas.⁶ And as Figure 3 shows, this pattern is seen across transport, industry and domestic emissions (the three largest emitting ‘sectors’), with cities having both lower emissions and larger falls since 2005. This has been in part driven by the overall shift from fossil fuels to lower-carbon energy sources, and from manufacturing to less carbon-intensive, service-based industries, particularly in urban areas.⁷

The challenge though for the UK as a whole is that transport emissions have fallen much less than the other two sectors, while domestic emissions remain relatively high. Action is needed in these areas in particular if the UK is going to hit its net zero targets.

It will need cities to continue to make an outsized contribution to emissions reductions in these sectors. On transport, while some of the reductions will be achieved through lower emission fuel sources, it will also require a reduction in driving. This will be much more feasible in central Newcastle than it will in rural Northumberland – practicalities mean that the car is always going to be improved in more rural areas, even if that car is an electric one. And on domestic emissions, while building to higher energy standards will reduce consumption wherever a home is built and whatever the building type, there will be more demand for energy-efficient apartments and terraces in central Manchester than out in rural Cheshire (where larger, more energy-hungry homes are likely to remain more common even if they are built to more energy efficient standards).

These factors will require national government to become much more spatially aware in its own net zero policy and strategy. But it will also require cities to take specific action to go further and faster on emissions reductions, backed by supportive national and devolved policy.

But what is it exactly that cities should do? The purpose of this research is twofold. The first is to identify the areas that cities should focus on to bring emissions down. And the second is to present examples in these areas from both the UK and overseas to provide ideas of what specific actions cities could take. It is not an exhaustive list of examples, nor does it provide a blueprint for places to replicate. But by drawing on the challenges and emerging successes from the case studies featured, it aims to provide inspiration and help national and local policy makers prioritise and accelerate decarbonisation in urban areas.

Section 2 looks at the role of density and development location in supporting many of the decarbonisation measures introduced in this report. It also discusses how to reduce domestic emissions through examples of retrofitting and energy efficient new developments. Section 3 focuses on transport emissions including how to align transport and spatial planning, reducing car use in favour of public and active travel, and the role of cities in delivering EV charging infrastructure and encouraging EV uptake. Section 4 looks at how cities can contribute to decarbonising energy generation. Section 5 brings these themes together, showcasing examples of how cities around the world are making connections between different strands of net zero policy. Finally, Section 6 offers policy recommendations to support national and local leaders.