Last week I held my pre-COP26 summit for Wantage and Didcot constituents. As I said when I opened the event, I put the event on because tackling climate change is very important to me, very important to a significant number of constituents and we have a big opportunity to demonstrate leadership when the world’s leaders come to Glasgow for the actual UN summit in November.
Ahead of that, I wanted Alok Sharma, President of COP26, to hear the views and ideas of people locally. I also thought it was a really good chance to showcase some great local organisations we have in the constituency.
Chris Stark, Chief Executive of the Independent Climate Change Committee, got us started with an overview of the Government’s progress towards the 2050 goal. His presentation was a great summary of where we’re doing well – the UK is 20 years ahead of the global average when it comes to cutting emissions – and where we aren’t doing as well e.g in our approach to homes and buildings. How we build homes ran through all the discussions on the day, as you might imagine!
Sarah Allan, who was instrumental in the Climate Assembly – in which a group of ordinary Britons who are not climate change experts worked together to come up with principles and policies to govern our approach to climate change – was next. One of the most valuable aspects of this project was that people chosen were representative of the country at large, meaning they didn’t recommend things which only the affluent can afford – indeed, they thought there ought to be a strong emphasis on fairness to different income groups and regions of the country.
Following Chris and Sarah’s talks we had 3 excellent panel discussions on Homes and Buildings, Renewable Energy and Nature and Farming. Ian Pritchett took people through the great design Greencore has pioneered and what it could mean for house-building and Karl Desai, from the UK Green Building Council, took people through what needs to happen with non-residential buildings.
Mike Blanch talked us through Westmill’s Wind and Solar Farm model and Steve Shaw from Power for People, the driving force behind the Local Electricity Bill I am a co-sponsor of, told us how we can help get the Bill into law. Then we had Ian Nutt explain how the Earth Trust manages sites like the Wittenham Clumps and Martin Lines, a third-generation farmer from the Nature Friendly Farming Network, showed everyone how farmers can be the best custodians of our environment.
It was a very enjoyable and informative event with questions and polls galore. I am now sending the findings from the day to Alok Sharma to see what his reaction is.
