The sixth – and final – WM-Air (‘Clean Air Science for the West Midlands’) annual meeting took place at The Exchange on 16th October 2024, with over 70 delegates including the WM-Air team, wider University of Birmingham colleagues, local authorities, external stakeholders and cross-sector partners from across the region and beyond.
At the meeting Bill Bloss explored the WM-Air’s achievements over the past 6 years, and members of the WM-Air team provided a series of short updates on work undertaken with external partners, including available tools, capabilities and key case studies across the region. These covered sources of PM2.5, transport emissions, modelling air quality intervention scenarios, tools for exploring the health and economic impacts of air pollution, GIS tools, and policy applications.
Bill Bloss and Jackie Homan from the WMCA also explored WM-Air’s legacy, including future WMCA-led community of practice events and follow-on projects such as WM-Net Zero and CLEETs. There was also a keynote presentation on one of those projects: ’Systems approaches for decarbonising energy and transport in the CLEETS Global Centre’ by Jonathan Radcliffe, UK CLEETS Lead and Professor of Energy Systems at the University of Birmingham. Following the main event, there were opportunities for discussion and networking over lunch.