Citizens' Climate Lobby UK

Tag: COP26

  • A climate summit in every county

    A climate summit in every county

    A climate summit can be a great way of bringing local environmental groups together to show the strength of feeling for climate change action – as Wiltshire found out, we are stronger together.

    It can also be a platform to raise awareness of Climate Income and collate views for your MP to feed back into the UK’s approach to the UN’s COP26, later this year in Glasgow.

    Making a climate summit happen

    Ask your MP to call one in your county – show them what Wiltshire did.

    Ask other environmental groups in your area to do the same thing.

    Write to the other MPs in your county, encouraging them to join in.

    Suggest they host a range of speakers – Wiltshire hosted the chair of the Farmer’s Union, the MOD, young people, county and parish councillors, a representative from the UK’s COP delegation, and the former chair of COP26.

    Maybe you know of, or are involved in, a local group which has succeeded in implementing a grassroots scheme such as electricity generation or flood defences. Examples of successful action and I hope, CCL’s positive message, should help steer MPs who are uncertain of engaging with the issues, away from “it’s not in the job description” negativity!

    It is well worth checking if your MP is already on the list of MPs endorsing the Local Electricity Bill, which received its first reading on the 15th January. Support for the bill would suggest that the MP may well be very open to hearing more from local environmental activists and setting up a summit. You may be surprised to see an MP you have considered highly unlikely to support such a bill to be on the list, it is attracting all sides!

    Need help or advice? Contact Gina.

    March meeting will discuss engaging local councillors in climate action.

    Featured image: Lt General Nugee, Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy Lead for the Ministry of Defence, appearing at the Wiltshire Climate Summit, February 2021

  • Good COP, Bad COP?

    COP26 Logo

    My confident prediction (for the up-coming climate conference, COP26) is that at least one national paper will use the above headline on the last day of the conference on Nov 12th.  If the final outcome is a bit of a fudge then maybe we’ll also get “COP out” whilst, if things go badly, we may end up with “not much COP”.  The Sun will, of course, go with “COP off” regardless of what happens.

    Hopefully, though, COP26 will see the world’s nations providing updated NDCs (their plans for emissions reductions over coming decades) and a clear agreement on how to monitor progress. So good COP, I hope!

    From CCL’s point of view the real work will start after that. Our flagship policy, of carbon fee and dividend (CF&D), is the most economically-efficient way for nations to achieve their NDC-objectives in a just and equitable way. I think our mission, over the months leading up to COP26, should be to try and get CF&D onto the agenda as the tool for turning good-COP-intentions into significant climate progress.

    So how do we do that?

    We need to be there and we need to prepare the ground. CCL will be there in the shape of Citizens Climate Education which has recognized observer status and should allow, perhaps, 5-10 CCL members from around the world to go. In addition, I’ve contacted the Cabinet Office (who are running the UK organization of COP) to request that we are given additional access as a UK-based NGO. I’ll let you all know if/when I hear anything.

    Our Glasgow-based members can also attend as volunteers. Go to https://ukcop26.org/the-conference/get-involved/ and take a look. This is an excellent way to get a few more CCL members involved and a great opportunity to be part of an historically important event.

    To prepare the ground, it will help to have a clear, simple “ask”—a short statement of what we’re looking for. What we’re looking for, of course, is widespread adoption of CF&D but, as I’m sure many of you have found out, getting across all the finer points of this policy is not straight-forward. Can we engage with others better by asking something simpler? Something like “can we make it cheaper to not pollute than it is to pollute?”

    I’m sure many of you won’t like that; it cuts out too much of what matters to us. But we have hundreds of members and I’m certain than someone out there can do better. So, I’d like to kick off COP-preparation with a competition. Send suggestions of what our “ask” should be. Just write it in the comment box below. If you can do that by Feb 15th that would be great. I’ll then read out the best ones at our next national meeting on Feb 16th.

  • Claire O’Neill dumped as COP26 president

    Claire O’Neill dumped as COP26 president

    The first thing that came to mind when I heard Claire O’Neill (formerly Perry, formerly my MP and formerly the minister for clean energy) had been dumped as president for this year’s crunch UN conference on climate change in Glasgow (COP26) was they couldn’t cope with a ballsy woman. Or should I say a titsy woman?

    According to The Guardian:
    “She also issued a putdown to David Davis when he confused her with another female Tory minister, Caroline Nokes. Referring to Davis’s previous campaigning slogan, she is reported to have told him: “David, let me help you: Caroline is a C cup, I am a double D.”

    I remember the sexist vitriol she suffered in the papers, and her edgy outbursts about giving blowjobs to have a say (a quote you could source back to original female hero Ripley in movie Aliens from 1986, and that was probably taken from a real world quote). The embarrassment was not because they were rude but because they put the reality of a woman working in Westminster under a harsh spotlight.

    After all, the current PM and his closest allies aren’t strangers to public gaffs and causing upsets when it suits, and yet they survive.

    Claire has been often, it seems to me, at odds with her role and the establishment. Sometimes she would totally toe the Tory whip line, to protect her position it seemed, and other times she would stick her neck out and rebel, as she did for a time over Brexit.

    She is a hard working and often effective advocate for the climate, instrumental in the net zero legislation, and yet, as a minister, also supported fracking and voted for the third Heathrow runway.

    Is it harder for a woman in Westminster, and harder for anyone trying to have a meaningful family life, to stay true to personal values (and keep their job) in an apparently toxic atmosphere of Punch and Judy politics?

    Former Labour Minister Harriet Harmon recounted at Swindon Festival of Literature that bunking off from an important Commons vote was okay for an extra-marital liaison but not for her child’s birthday.

    When Claire took a sabbatical from her cabinet ministerial position earlier this year due to a family illness, she told me in a CCL local meeting that MPs had no working rights and this was the first time this had been allowed, and only possible with the support of the then PM, Theresa May.

    Fast forward a few months to Boris’ new regime and she found herself relegated to the back benches.

    Whatever the real story behind Claire’s COP26 sacking, the political system needs to be less brutal, more nurturing. These are the people whose job is to care about our interests.

    Fixing the climate isn’t about finding the most economical solution, though we at CCL have to sometimes employ this argument. It’s not about tackling climate change because doing nothing is the most expensive option. To really stop causing this problem now, and different problems in the future, we have to be capable of empathy; to care for and respect ourselves and each other and our liveable world.

    And we, at Citizens’ Climate Lobby, have to leave bitter thoughts at our MP’s door when exploring that crucial common ground, and act how we wish it to be. Our caring and respectful actions and words will help make it so.

    Louisa Davison is on CCL’s Steering Committee. These are her personal opinions and not necessarily the official opinion of CCL.