Thousands join mass climate change lobby outside UK parliament

Emma Howard

Beekeepers, surfers, nuns and children were among thousands of people who lined up outside the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday to speak to their MP about climate change.
Some had woken up in the early hours to travel from as far as Polzeath in Cornwall and Aberdeen to take part in what organisers believe is the UK’s biggest ever lobby on climate change.
Around 9,000 constituents took part in person, lobbying around 250 MPs according to the Climate Coalition, the group of charities, unions and faith groups that organised the event. London mayoral hopeful and Conservative MP, Zac Goldsmith, Caroline Lucas of the Green party and Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn were among the MPs meeting with constituents.
The event came the day before Pope Francis is due to deliver a historic encyclical on climate change. Organisers said they hope it will build public pressure and political momentum in the final months before a landmark Paris conference on climate change in December.

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Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, said that the lobby sent out a strong message to parliament. “A lot of people have said how disappointed they were that climate change didn’t feature more highly in the election campaign. This shows how much people care about the issue.”
Groups formed in the sunshine along the river stretching from the House of Commons down to Lambeth Palace.
Liz Crew woke up at 2am to travel to Westminster from the Somerset Levels where her farm was flooded last year.
“I was very badly affected by the flooding in 2014 with lots of our village being completely inundated with water – up to 7ft in places. Life is still not back to normal. We really don’t want to go through it again. It’s important that someone speaks out on climate change.
“In my part of Somerset we have been very remiss at dealing with this for various reasons – cutbacks and local authorities turning a blind eye. It really does seem to be impacting on the amount of water there is around us.”
Called Speak Up for the Love Of, the mass lobby encouraged participants to share something that they love that will be threatened by climate change. MPs were transported to their constituents on bicycle taxis and grilled on a variety of climate issues from food security to conservation to sport.
Schoolchildren also took part: Ava and Ruby, both aged eight, from London, met their MP, Labour’s Vicky Foxcroft, of Lewisham Deptford.
Ava said: “I’d miss chocolate – if climate change occurs it will be too hot for cocoa beans to grow. Ruby would miss London because if it gets too hot the polar ice caps will melt and London will be submerged beneath the waves. We think Vicky Foxcroft should tell people to stop drilling for oil and make sure they have 100% clean air and energy.” Ava also said she wanted to become an MP.

Vicky Foxcroft MP meeting Ruby and Ava (eight) from Lewisham, London. Photograph: John Phillips/Getty Images

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, who turned up to meet constituents by the river on his bicycle, took questions about bees, global inequality and biodiversity. Corbyn said that if elected Labour leader he would push the sustainability agenda. “We’ve made a lot of progress on environmental policy in the Labour party. I now want us to look at the whole question of sustainability and to set that into a policy change.”
The mass lobby was followed by a rally outside parliament with comedians Arthur Smith Olympic rower Andy Hodge and the indie band Stornoway. A reception with Amber Rudd, secretary of state for energy and climate change, was later hosted at Marks & Spencer headquarters, where supporters were shown a video message from Mary Robinson, the UN’s special envoy for climate change.
But it was longstanding environmental campaigner Asad Rehman of the Climate Coalition who gave the most impassioned speech: “We are in a time of crisis,” he said. “All around the world we can see the reality of climate change: the droughts, the floods and the famines. We see it in the dead bodies in the Mediterranean and in the typhoons. We know the names of the companies responsible for their deaths.
“All around the world we are seeing an unprecedented movement of people in its breadth and diversity: it spans the communities in the Amazon fighting to stop deforestation and Bangladeshi fisher folk protecting their mangroves. It includes men, women and children in Nigeria protesting against Shell and the oil spills.”
The mass lobby comes as the pope prepares to deliver a historic encyclical on Thursday about the “grave consequences” of climate change in absence of a radical global change in lifestyles and energy production and consumption. In a draft of the document leaked to L’Espresso magazine, the pope calls for a new global authority to tackle “the reduction of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions”.

Hugo Tagholm, chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, arrived at Westminster complete with wetsuit and surf board.
“We represent the interests of surfers and other sports enthusiasts who love our coastline and particularly love our surfing habitats. They are at the forefront of the impacts of climate change – whether that’s sea level rises, ocean acidification or increased rainfalls.”
A “bunting petition” stretched along the River Thames, on which lobbyists had written what they love that will be affected by climate change. “For the love of bikes”, read one. “For the love of our home”, read another.
Chris Bain, director of the Catholic development charity Cafod, said: “I think [the pope] feels that given 2015 is such a critical year for development, poverty and climate change, he wants to signal that this is a moral issue of our time and he wants politicians all over the world to take it seriously.
He estimated that more than 800 Catholics from parishes around the country and from dozens of schools had made the journey to Westminster.
At a service in Westminster ahead of Wednesday’s lobbying event, the Bishop of Salisbury, Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam, said: “This is not just our individual concern. It is our Christian concern together as the church. It is the concern of people of all faiths. It is our human concern in solidarity with all people. The world is our home.”
In December, negotiators representing more than 190 countries will meet in Paris for a conference designed to create a new global climate change deal largely focused on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Any deal would come into force in 2020, when current commitments are due to expire.
The Guardian has launched a campaign, Keep it in the Ground, to shine a light on the impacts of climate change and the barriers to action. As part of this, it is asking the world’s largest charitable foundations – the Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation – to divest from fossil fuel companies.

Source: Guardian