Climate Change

Discussing Climate Change with Bill Ellens and Friends of the Earth at the Arboretum. We need urgent action on this issue. While our immediate attention focuses on responding to the coronavirus pandemic, we continue to live through a climate and environment emergency. According to the UN, we have under ten years left to avoid the worst impacts of catastrophic climate change. We must bring forward the most ambitious green recovery plan in the world.

This will mean providing jobs for those displaced by the coronavirus crisis by creating a “zero carbon army” to take on vital work such as home insulation, making zero-emission vehicles, producing renewable energy, planting trees, cultivating our green spaces and redesigning and improving our towns and cities, including by adapting them for walking and cycling. It will mean reducing our carbon footprint while also improving the quality of life enjoyed by people across our country. It must also mean that conditions on financial support to save companies force them to adhere to environmental requirements.

Protecting our climate and nature is not only a necessity to ensure our collective future, it goes hand-in-hand with fostering our economy and ensuring decent living standards and quality of life.