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It's been a busy few months for Moorlands Climate Action, coinciding with unprecedented heatwaves, wildfires and drought. The need for groups like Moorlands Climate Action has never been more pertinent, as the reality of Climate Change is mirrored by the increase in climate denial.
Leek and District Show - We were fortunate to be offered a last minute upgrade to a larger 'Premium' pitch adjacent to the main ring and were kept busy all day with a steady stream of visitors. The bigger stall meant we had space for a wide range of displays and games - it was certainly our busiest Leek Show.
Working with SMDC - For some months, we have been talking with the Climate Officers at SMDC, to look at how we can raise awareness of the range of work they are doing and how the wider community can be part of their work. We considered that it would be appropriate to look at the various elements of the Adaptation work stream - how we can build resilience into our daily lives to protect ourselves from the worst impact of climate change. Building on the existing Staffordshire strategy and national A Well-Adapted UK, we are taking part in an initial workshop next month, with a view to a wider public event in the future. If you have a specific interest or experience in Adaptation, please get in touch.
People's Emergency Briefing - Adrian has led on the work to organise and present three viewings of the People's Emergency Briefing in Cheadle, Leek and Endon, and this is covered elsewhere in the newsletter. It was good to be invited onto the panel at the Stoke viewing, along with local MP Gareth Snell, and encouraging to see that the movement is building momentum.
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MCA is proud to support the National Emergency Briefing campaign for there to be a live televised national briefing, introduced by the Prime Minister and delivered by independent experts, so that the whole country can be fully informed about the climate risks we face and the solutions available.
As part of this campaign, we have hosted three screenings of the People’s Emergency Briefing in June at venues in Cheadle, Leek and Endon. The screenings were attended by around 150 people who were invited to hear the latest evidence on the climate and nature crisis and to discuss how to respond. Our local MPs were invited to the screenings along with County and District councillors. Disappointingly only a handful of district councillors were able (or willing) to attend.
The discussions that took place following the film contained a mixture of frustration at the recent fracturing of the previous political consensus and hope that momentum could be regained as well as exchanges of ideas and actions that individuals and communities could take.
One ‘Call to Action’ from the film was for people to sign the parliamentary petition calling for the Government to hold the UK-wide briefing on climate and nature risks. It is pleasing to report that the petition achieved the milestone of 100,000 signatures in early August which means that the Petitions Committee will consider it for debate in Parliament. Thank you to everyone in the Staffordshire Moorlands who added their signature.
Screenings continue to be held across Staffordshire, including at B-Arts in Stoke on 19th August where MCA Chair, Mike Jones, was invited to be on the panel. The event attracted over 100 attendees including the MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, Gareth Snell. Gareth concluded the session with very supportive speech and promised to encourage his neighbouring MPs to engage with the issues we face.
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Li, N., Unluer, C. Towards a net zero built environment: decarbonisation of the UK cement industry. npj Mater. Sustain. 3, 10 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44296-025-00052-0. Fig. 6 | Decarbonisation of the UK cement industry. a Technology decarbonisation roadmap.
Decarbonising the cement industry is a global issue that is intensely local. Cement (and concrete) are responsible for between 7% and 8% of worldwide CO2 emissions, just 1.5% of emissions in the UK, but around 25% in Staffordshire Moorlands and High Peak. The exceptionally high local figures reflect the concentration of the industry in the district; the relatively low UK figures partly reflect our increasing reliance on imports, some from countries with no decarbonisation plans in place.
The path to emission reduction chosen by the UK government and the industry involves increasing carbon taxes, partially subsidising the industry’s investment in carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS), while protecting it from ‘dirty’ imports via the European Carbon Adjustment Mechanism.
It is often overlooked that even the government and the cement industry accept that CCUS technology can only be part of the solution and that alternative products and better construction practices play as important a role in the path to Net Zero. That said, many people argue that the cement industry needs to transform itself more fundamentally instead of using expensive CCUS technology to continue ‘business as usual’.
There certainly are potential alternatives to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and this article provides links to some of them. There is no doubt that CCUS does lessen the pressure on the cement industry to investigate other, low-carbon products. But retooling a whole industry as well as much of the construction trade involves far deeper issues than technological breakthroughs, in particular:
Read more: Are ‘Green’ Alternatives to Traditional Cement Production...
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Over 100 Repair Cafés from across the UK came together in Parliament on 25 March, to meet with MPs and call for the Government to introduce a Right to Repair. Moorlands Repair Café was there again and networked with other groups to share ideas and resources; it was so good to hear how other groups had developed and Mike came back with lots of ideas!
The event attracted 90+ MPs, including Karen Bradley MP, who pledged her support for the work we do in the Moorlands and promised to back the campaign. Dr Allison Gardner MP (Stoke South) has also pledged to support the campaign and went further when she signed the UK Repair & Reuse Declaration at last year’s event - thank you.
This was the third year in a row that Restart had teamed up with Back Market to invite MPs to get hands on and talk about why repair and reuse matter. And it represented real progress.
Representatives from more than 100 of the UK’s community repair groups were invited and there was a school group there with Team Repair who demonstrated how their kits are teaching young people how to repair, in addition to instances of beloved items being repaired.
Many MPs signed up to the Repair and Reuse Declaration - a number that grew during the event from 112 MPs at the start, to a whopping 143 by the end, boosted by the 91 MPs who came to the event. Many of these MPs either signed the declaration or offered to support Restart’s ongoing efforts to secure strong policy to support repair – or both.
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HuG, our Moorlands Green Arts Festival, returns to the Foxlowe on Saturday 27 June from 10.00am to 4.00pm and this year we shall be celebrating water – rivers and stream, springs, ponds and lakes. MCA is a partner in the Nature in Your Neighbourhood project, along with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Keele University, OUTSIDE Arts and SMDC. As ever there will be a wide range of stalls showcasing a variety of arts and crafts using different materials, all produced with an environmental ethos.
We’ll be entertained by local storyteller extraordinaire, Gordon MacLellan aka Creeping Toad, as well as Leek Rock Choir and Leek Morris and festival favourites, the Leek U3A African drummers. New stallholders include Wheatcroft Willow – basket maker Rachel Evans – and the Staffordshire Makers Collective. Joining us again will be Moral Fibres – preloved textiles and notions – and Projects from Pallets.
On the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust stall you’ll be able to look into their aquarium and take a peek at pond life while Leek Books will have books of a watery nature for all ages to add to your collection. Perhaps our plant stall will have marginal plants for your own pond. Local nature and environmental groups such as Swifts of Leek and Friends of the Earth will also be there.
We’re hoping for good weather yet again, though perhaps not as hot as last year! And to ensure a great day out for everyone, we’re looking for volunteers to help on the day with a variety of tasks, from helping stallholders set up to selling raffle tickets.
If you can give us a hand, please get in touch by completing the form below.
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The first round of consultation for the Peak Cluster Carbon Capture and Storage project has begun. Follow the link for more details. The project aims to capture the CO2 produced as a by-product from cement and lime-making at four sites in Derbyshire and Staffordshire and then pipe it for long-term storage in depleted gas fields in the Irish Sea.
The project has already divided opinion. Some see it as the only way to decarbonise an essential industry in the timetable required to meet UK climate targets. Others argue for a more fundamental reshaping of the way we approach growth, or that there are cleaner alternatives to cement.
One potentially hard-to-understand issue is whether there is enough storage for the CO2 and, if so, whether it is safe.
In an attempt to help inform the discussion on that specific subject we’ve brought together some links to what evidence is already out there. The list does not claim to be comprehensive, nor has it been selected to advance one side or other of the debate.
Capacity
This recent research paper published in Nature seems pretty definitive and argues that safe storage is very significantly less than previously estimated but that CCS almost certainly will have a pivotal role in reaching climate targets.
Here is a summary by the report’s authors for Carbon Brief.....
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