As COP 27 begins, what’s happening locally to help save our beautiful little planet from doom?
Well, Horsham District Council held a Climate Action Day on 20th October to help prepare the parish councillors for what lies ahead for all of us.
Two thirds of the 32 parish councils in HD were represented, with 11 parishes not attending. So what progress has been made?
Is the climate broken? Should the Government be doing more about it? Can ordinary citizens do anything? How will things look for our children and grandchildren?
To find out what the people of Horsham think, we spent a recent lunchtime patrolling the busy streets around the Swan Walk Shopping Centre.
Soaring temperatures have left Sussex residents sweltering after an extreme heat warning raised the question whether this week has been the hottest on record in the region and what we should be doing to tackle climate change.
The national emergency came only a day after Sussex Green Living’s CEO Carrie Cort, her son and the charity’s Youth Eco Forum leader Tash Barns joined ‘Zero Hour’, a coalition of UK campaigners, world-leading scientists, academics and members of the public in Victoria Tower Garden next to the House of Lords in Westminster.
The COP26 Climate Summit starts in Glasgow on November 1st. It’s an opportunity that simply can’t be missed if the world is to get on top of climate change, and the multiple threats it poses to the planet, before it’s too late.
But who knew that crucial, behind-the-scenes, preparations for the conference are happening right here in Sussex, at Wiston House, just up the road from Steyning.
That’s where Wilton Park, a specialist offshoot of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, is based. In their 75th anniversary year, Wilton Park have been instrumental in convening a whole series of dialogues and meetings – mostly online, because of Covid – all geared to making the Glasgow Summit a success.
COP stands for the ‘Conference of the Parties’, and Glasgow is the 26th such event since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed in Rio at the 1992 Earth Summit. This one is particularly important. It is the first time that governments will be asked to report back on progress on the pledges made at the Paris Summit in 2016, and ‘ratchet’ them up with new and more demanding targets. Read more
Los Cedros Reserve – Andean cloud forest of Ecuador – UNDER THREAT
Our friend Nicola Peel has sent us an update and some incredible photos from her visit to the Los Cedros Reserve in the cloud forest of Ecuador which is now threatened by gold, copper and molybdenum mining.
Pupils from 20 primary schools, two from West Sussex, told high-level politicians and industry leaders how they thought plastic waste could be reduced.
The children, from Seaside Primary School in Lancing, and Waterfield Primary School in Crawley, Read more
