Climate change pathway

Carbon emissions are one of the principal causes of climate change whether from buildings, transport or business activities such as the manufacture of products. Reducing our use of fossil fuels and hydrocarbons as sources of energy is critical to our future. The Government has set one of the most ambitious targets in the world to phase out their use by 2050 whether it is to heat our homes, power our transport, commercial and industrial processes.

What we are doing:

• Seeking to partner with an organisation or organisations to invest and develop renewable technologies, heat networks and the future zero carbon infrastructure to meet the city’s future energy needs for existing and new homes and business developments such as providing the power needed for the development and running of the new Gigafactory.
• Creating a solar farm using the power from the sun to generate zero carbon electricity for our homes and electric vehicles.
• Improving the energy efficiency of public buildings and also increasing the use of renewable energy sources (such as solar), district heating and heat pumps, etc.
• Building upon our energy from waste programme by expanding Heatline to more offices and homes.
• Future heat networks will link properties across the city.
• Using Government funding to work with housing associations and householders to retrofit homes to make them more energy efficient.
• Working towards making Coventry the UK’s first Electric Bus City.
• Creating the Coventry Very Light Rail – a lightweight alternative to the tram.
• Continue to create top-class segregated cycleways to reduce the number of trips made by private motor vehicles. Two routes are virtually completed – with plans for more.
• Working with businesses and schools to create commuter plans to reduce traffic and congestion.
• Supporting businesses to become more energy efficient with guidance, advice and grants to make offices and factories more energy efficient and encouraging them to invest in electric vehicles for transporting goods and services

In the UK

• 45% of all urban trips in 2019 were under two miles, and journeys below five miles made up 58% of all car trips. Many of these trips could have been walked, cycled, or used public transport instead.
• We travel around 135 miles per year for our food shopping, but this doesn’t account for the miles our food travels to the supermarket first. Food miles add up quickly, leaving a heavy carbon footprint.
• The typical household uses 2,900kWh of electricity and 12,000kwh of gas in a year. The Government will be phasing out the use of gas in new homes after 2025 (Ofgem estimate).
• Average cycling miles travelled increased from 2002 to 2019, with a sharp rise in 2020, a positive sign that we’re looking at alternative travel.