G&W FOE Climate Change & the Big Ask

Inspiration

"If not now, when? If not here, where? If not us, who?" (George Monbiot speaking at the climate march Dec 8 2007.)

"We are what is wrong, and we must make it right."

(Al Gore in his Nobel prize acceptance speech.)

Look these up!

DON'T GIVE UP ON TWO DEGREES
"The Conservative Party Policy Group has published an important update to the Quality of Life Group's recent report on acceptable climate change and CO2 emission targets." An extremely well written document, worth quoting from.

A response to the Draft Climate Change Bill’s carbon reduction targets: Tyndall Centre Briefing Note 17. Argues that "the governement's two criteria for revisiting the draft climate change bill are already met, and hence the targets should be a legitimate subject of
major reform during the passage of the Bill through Parliament."

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Email us to get all the latest news and campaign details and our free newsletter at gwfoenews@yahoo.co.uk.

Climate Change and The Big Ask

Ask your MP to support a strong Climate Bill

For exchanges of letters between our members and their MP's see here.

Last year over 130,000 asked their MP to support calls for a new law to make annual cuts in carbon dioxide.

In response the Government announced last November that it would introduce a Climate Bill. This is a fantastic success for The Big Ask, Friends of the Earth's national campaign to get a Climate Change Bill introduced..

The challenge now is to make sure that the Bill is a tough one.

A strong law will allow the UK to play its part in tackling climate change. And it would set an example that the rest of the world could follow.

The majority of MPs last year said they wanted such a Bill. This year we need to make sure they stick to their word and support a strong Climate Bill.

Please ask your MP to make sure the Government does the right thing. Send your MP an email through the national Friends of the Earth Climate Campaign and visit The Big Ask to find out more.

Our Local Group activities

We have been running a series of events to support the campaign for a strong climate bill.

A public meeting was held last October which Jeremy Hunt, MP for South West Surrey, and Martyn Williams, Friends of the Earth's Senior Parliamentary Campaigner, attended. There was a presentation by Ben Richards, from Guildford and Godalming FOE, on his recent trip to the Arctic, sponsored by the Ben and Jerry Climate Change Scholarship. Over 100 people attended.

We have been on the I Count March, the Brussels Energy action, and screened An Inconvenient Truth (jointly with Guildford Environment Forum) with over 60 attendees.

More recent events have included 3 stalls where we have been asking members of the public to sign a card to their MP asking for a stronger bill. So far we have gathered 200 known petitioners, and handed out many more postcards.

Future plans include another stall, and further lobbying of the 4 MP's who cover our area.

In the long term, once the bill is passed we will be directing our attention to enabling positive solutions to tackling climate change at a national and a local level, and contributing to the global development of strategy.