Email
Later this month world leaders will gather in New York for a historic summit on climate change. This is an opportunity to inspire key decision-makers to act in the face of a growing climate crisis that threatens almost every aspect of our lives. Politicians all over the world cite a lack of public support as a reason not to take bold action against climate change. So on 21 September we will meet this moment with unprecedented public mobilisations in cities around the world, including thousands of people on the streets of London. Our goal is simple – to demonstrate the groundswell demand that exists for ambitious climate action.
From New York and London to Paris, Berlin, Delhi and Melbourne we’ll demonstrate demand for an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities. There is only one ingredient that is required: to change everything, we need everyone. History is our proof that the impossible is smaller than we think. The abolition of slavery. The end of apartheid. The spread of universal suffrage. All proof that the future is ours to shape. We just need to step out and claim it.
Ricken Patel Executive director, Avaaz, David Babbs Executive director, 38 Degrees, John Sauven Executive director, Greenpeace-UK, Matthew Frost Chief executive, Tearfund, Mark Goldring Chief executive, Oxfam, Justin Forsyth CEO, Save the Children, David Nussbaum CEO, WWF-UK, Neil Thorns Chair, The Climate Coalition, Chris Bain Director, Cafod, Loretta Minghella CEO, Christian Aid, Andy Atkins Executive director, Friends of the Earth, Claire James Campaign against Climate Change, Sam Fairbairn National secretary, People’s Assembly Against Austerity
• Zoe Williams makes a compelling case for an energy revolution (Pessimism won’t do. We need an energy revolution, 1 September). Behind a PR smokescreen of getting tough on energy companies, it’s clear that both the government and the Labour frontbench are bending over backwards to keep the Big Six energy giants content. It’s little wonder that people feel pessimistic. A major transformation of the way the UK generates its heat and power is essential. Fuel poverty is rife and the UK is languishing near the bottom of renewable energy league tables – costing jobs, as well as endangering our credibility on tackling climate change.
Above all, what we need is a revolution in ownership of our energy system. If the main parties were really on the side of consumers, community ownership and decentralised energy would be at the heart of their energy proposals – not just the very periphery.
In July, the Institute for Public Policy Research set out clear plans for how cities and local authorities can provide an alternative to the Big Six and create a cleaner, smarter and more affordable energy system. Later this month, Community Energy Fortnight will celebrate success stories of locally owned energy from across the UK – projects such as the Brighton Energy Co-operative that provide a glimpse of an incredibly positive alternative energy future, where people are active producers and not just passive consumers. Profits are reinvested locally, rather than going into the pockets of multinational shareholders. The problem isn’t that we don’t know what policy changes are needed to give all local communities, villages, towns and cities the ability to generate their own heat and power from local renewable energy sources. What’s lacking is the political will to stand up to the Big Six.
Caroline Lucas MP
Green, Brighton Pavilion
• Matt Gorman, sustainability director at Heathrow – itself an oxymoron –misstates the Committee on Climate Change concerning runway expansion in the south-east (Letters, 4 September). The committee has established a legal limit of 37.5m tonnes of CO2 a year to cover all UK civil aviation emissions through to 2050, to ensure aviation growth fits within the targets for overall greenhouse gas reduction. Current annual aviation emissions are around 33m tonnes a year, so while it might just about be possible to allocate the available headroom – approximately 4.5m tonnes – to an additional runway anywhere in the south-east, which the CCC has said could happen mathematically, this would mean no further aviation CO2 budget for expansion elsewhere in the UK. A busy third runway at Heathrow or a second at Gatwick would very likely soak all this up. We cannot find any statement or form of words that would support Mr Gorman’s claim that the CCC supports a third runway at Heathrow airport.
Jeffrey Gazzard
Board member, Aviation Environment Federation
• Guy Standing (Comment, 5 September) makes some useful suggestions how the fruits of fracking could at least be more fairly distributed than was the case of North Sea oil. One further suggestion: the first use of any profit should be to fund alternative forms of energy for a time when there is no recoverable oil or gas.
Richard Bull
Woodbridge, Suffolk
;