Temperatures are soaring and Manchester is still failing to act fast enough

As the city sizzled in record-breaking temperatures earlier this month, Manchester was forced to confront an uncomfortable fact – it's failing to act fast enough. The extreme heat didn't quite hit the heights of 38C, which was forecast for Manchester on July 19, but records were broken twice in two days.

Weather stations in Rochdale and Rostherne - the nearest to the city - saw top temperatures of 37.2C and 37.7C respectively, smashing the previous record of 33.9C. Meanwhile, the The University of Manchester reported temperatures of more than 36C at its Whitworth Observatory near the city centre on the same day.

And climate change modelling by the UK Met Office predicts more frequent and intense weather events in the future, including floods and heatwaves. Despite the discomfort of the higher temperatures - estimated to be 5.6C above average during summers - flooding is expected to have the biggest impact on Manchester where more than 48,000 homes are at a high risk.

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Earlier this year, there were three major storms in one week for the first time, affecting 430 homes in the city and causing delays to local infrastructure. For its part, Manchester council is on track to halve its own CO2 emissions by 2025 – and it even received national recognition for its response to the climate crisis at the Local Government Chronicle Awards earlier this week.

But the town hall is only responsible for 3 to 5 pc of emissions across the city. In 2018, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research calculated that Manchester must cut its overall carbon emissions by 13 pc every year.

However, having missed that target, the