Warwickshire Climate Alliance
Warwickshire Climate Alliance is an umbrella organisation of
Warwickshire environmental groups, devoted to pushing for stronger
action within the county on the climate emergency.
Upcoming Events
Our Aims
We aim to lobby and collaborate with county-wide agencies to develop a serious plan for transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible, and we seek collaborations with other organisations to develop ideas for reaching that goal.
Public Awareness
We work to raise public awareness of the challenges of climate change, and to enhance the local connections that allow campaigners to share knowledge and collaborate in developing local campaigns.
Our Partners
We know that there are lots of groups already active in the area; we want to provide a way for everyone to see what everyone else is doing, and to provide a first port of call for someone who would like to become active but doesn’t know who to contact. The Environmental Groups Page contains a list of local groups and provides links to their websites.
Climate and Nature Bill
You may have seen that the Climate and Nature Bill has been selected for a vote in Parliament on 24th January. 227 MPs have already committed to supporting the Bill so it has a fair chance of passing. If it did, it would lead to a step change in government action on the climate and nature emergencies: among other things, it would make it legally binding on the government to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, to address our overseas footprint, and to ensure the beginnings of a visible reversal of the decline of the natural world by 2030.
So it’s worth expending a bit of effort on! Among Warwickshire MPs only Manuela Perteghella, MP for Stratford, has committed to supporting the Bill.
Warwickshire Climate Alliance has written to the other local MPs – Jodie Gosling, John Slinger, Rachel Taylor, Matt Western, and Sir Jeremy Wright – to urge them both to support the Bill and, importantly, to pledge to be in Parliament to vote for it on January 24th. Please, if you are one of these MPs’ constituents, take the time to write to them to urge them to back the Bill. You can use the Zero Hour website to do this.
I know there are always many things one could be writing to one’s MP about, but this is one of those moments when concerted pressure could achieve a big result. The existing legislation, the Climate Change Act of 2008, was achieved through a campaign just like this one, and the Act been used to take the government to court on several occasions to force them to develop more serious net zero plans.
If you’re a member of a climate or nature group outside of the Stratford area, please also consider doing some campaigning to put more pressure on your MP to back the Bill. You could try writing to them as a group (please feel free to borrow from our letter if that helps!), asking to meet them to discuss the issue, setting up a petition, a letter-writing campaign, a press release or letter to your local newspaper, or something else altogether! You can read a slightly longer summary of some of the good things in the CAN Bill in our letter (see below), or you can read the Bill and briefings about it at the Zero Hour website.
Current Actions and Issues
Letter to MPs on the Climate and Nature Bill
If you are not in the Stratford upon Avon constituency, please write to your MP to urge them to support the Climate and Nature Bill. You could adapt the following letter, which WCA has sent.
We are writing as an umbrella organisation representing groups across Warwickshire that are working to combat climate change and to protect and restore nature. We believe the climate emergency and the damage we are doing to the natural systems that sustain us are the greatest issues facing humanity today.
We are delighted to see that the Climate and Nature Bill will now advance to a Second Reading in the House of Commons on January 24th, having been picked to do so by the new MP for the South Cotswolds constituency, Dr Roz Savage. As a Warwickshire MP, we would like to ask you to join 227 MPs and Peers across the political parties in pledging your support for the Bill, and to ensure that you are available to vote in favour of it on January 24th.
Like the 2008 Climate Change Act, the CAN Bill is non-party political. It links the climate and nature crises to give us the best chance of limiting emissions to 1.5°C, if that is still possible, and to reverse (rather than merely halt) the decline of nature. It would improve on existing legislation, including the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act, in several key ways:
It would unambiguously require the phasing out of fossil fuels as quickly as possible, ending the culture of delay and greenwashing promoted by the fossil fuel industry and their allies in the media.
By linking the climate crisis and the decline of natural biodiversity, the Bill ensures decarbonisation will not take place at the expense of the natural environment.
By requiring visible reversal of the decline of nature by 2030, it opens opportunities for carbon sequestration from the restoration of woodlands and hedgerows, rivers, peatlands and wetlands.
The Bill would mandate a just transition, by ensuring financial support and retraining for workers in fossil fuel and other affected industries.
In order to secure as broad a social consent as possible for a green transition that will impact the lives of everyone, the Bill would ensure involvement of ordinary people in planning the transition through a Climate and Nature Assembly.
It will ensure emissions reductions at home are not achieved by simply offshoring them, by requiring that the UK take action to reduce its carbon emissions and ecological impacts overseas, as existing legislation does not. Carbon emissions will harm the life chances of future generations wherever they are released. We cannot solve the problem with an ‘island mentality’.
You can learn more about the Bill, and find lists of supporting politicians and organisations here. The Bill itself can be read here.
We believe this is a vital opportunity to ensure that we are doing everything we can to try to limit global heating. As the planet heats beyond 1.5°C over pre-industrial temperatures, scientists consider it ‘likely’ we will trigger irreversible transformations, such as the undermining of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, and the transition of the Amazon rainforest to grassland. These transformations will have a devastating impact on human societies and the natural world. According to the latest State of the Climate Report, written by leading climate scientists, “Climate change has already displaced millions of people, with the potential to displace hundreds of millions or even billions. That would likely lead to greater geopolitical instability, possibly even partial societal collapse.”
Since entering government, both Keir Starmer and his Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, have spoken of the existential threat of climate change in speeches to the UN. At the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, the UK joined other nations in adopting a Declaration for Future Generations, in recognition of the impact our inaction will have on future generations. Passing the Climate and Nature Bill would help restore hope to the young, demonstrate world leadership, and uphold these commitments we have made to the United Nations and the world.
Please commit to supporting the Climate and Nature Bill and to turning up to vote for it at its Second Reading on the 24th January.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Dear [MPs name]
We are delighted to see that the Climate and Nature Bill will now advance to a Second Reading in the House of Commons on January 24th, having been picked to do so by the new MP for the South Cotswolds constituency, Dr Roz Savage. As a Warwickshire MP, we would like to ask you to join 227 MPs and Peers across the political parties in pledging your support for the Bill, and to ensure that you are available to vote in favour of it on January 24th.
Like the 2008 Climate Change Act, the CAN Bill is non-party political. It links the climate and nature crises to give us the best chance of limiting emissions to 1.5°C, if that is still possible, and to reverse (rather than merely halt) the decline of nature. It would improve on existing legislation, including the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act, in several key ways:
It would unambiguously require the phasing out of fossil fuels as quickly as possible, ending the culture of delay and greenwashing promoted by the fossil fuel industry and their allies in the media.
By linking the climate crisis and the decline of natural biodiversity, the Bill ensures decarbonisation will not take place at the expense of the natural environment.
By requiring visible reversal of the decline of nature by 2030, it opens opportunities for carbon sequestration from the restoration of woodlands and hedgerows, rivers, peatlands and wetlands.
The Bill would mandate a just transition, by ensuring financial support and retraining for workers in fossil fuel and other affected industries.
In order to secure as broad a social consent as possible for a green transition that will impact the lives of everyone, the Bill would ensure involvement of ordinary people in planning the transition through a Climate and Nature Assembly.
It will ensure emissions reductions at home are not achieved by simply offshoring them, by requiring that the UK take action to reduce its carbon emissions and ecological impacts overseas, as existing legislation does not. Carbon emissions will harm the life chances of future generations wherever they are released. We cannot solve the problem with an ‘island mentality’.
You can learn more about the Bill, and find lists of supporting politicians and organisations here. The Bill itself can be read here.
We believe this is a vital opportunity to ensure that we are doing everything we can to try to limit global heating. As the planet heats beyond 1.5°C over pre-industrial temperatures, scientists consider it ‘likely’ we will trigger irreversible transformations, such as the undermining of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, and the transition of the Amazon rainforest to grassland. These transformations will have a devastating impact on human societies and the natural world. According to the latest State of the Climate Report, written by leading climate scientists, “Climate change has already displaced millions of people, with the potential to displace hundreds of millions or even billions. That would likely lead to greater geopolitical instability, possibly even partial societal collapse.”
Since entering government, both Keir Starmer and his Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, have spoken of the existential threat of climate change in speeches to the UN. At the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, the UK joined other nations in adopting a Declaration for Future Generations, in recognition of the impact our inaction will have on future generations. Passing the Climate and Nature Bill would help restore hope to the young, demonstrate world leadership, and uphold these commitments we have made to the United Nations and the world.
Please commit to supporting the Climate and Nature Bill and to turning up to vote for it at its Second Reading on the 24th January.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Pension Fund Divestment
Campaign to persuade Warwickshire County Council to divest its pension fund from fossil fuel companies.
Response to WCC Sustainable Futures
Sewage Pollution on the River Avon
Cemex
Rugby Cement- planning application to store recycled materials to add to cement and reduce “embedded carbon”
Beechwood Farm Battery Energy
Try your hand at our climate quiz
Today Warwickshire Climate Alliance has released its detailed response to the County Council's Sustainable Futures Strategy.
We believe that the Sustainable Futures Strategy is hamstrung by the lack of resources that the Council is willing to devote to ensuring a sustainable future. One of the most disturbing weaknesses in the Strategy is its failure to aim for net zero by 2050, despite this being a UK Government priority. The Council's strategy, if pursued, would achieve only for a 40% reduction on emissions across the county, and would rely on offsetting for the remaining reduction. We believe this reliance is unrealistic.
On the positive side, we are heartened that the Council wishes that a community powered approach should be central to the Sustainable Futures Strategy, and is committed to continue to engage and strengthen partnership working with local climate and community groups. Warwickshire is home to great energy and expertise on issues related to the climate emergency. We believe that the Council’s climate emergency plans would benefit from the greater involvement of this local expertise. To achieve this, we propose that the Council should set up specialist forums, made up of local experts, for each of the six themes presented here, to provide input into the further development of the Council’s plans. As an umbrella organisation including several community groups and networks, Warwickshire Climate Alliance and the Low Carbon Warwickshire Network would be well placed to assist in the identification of members of such panels.
The Warwick District Green Party has also released its response to the Sustainable Futures Strategy, accessible via our Warwickshire County Council page.
David Thurburn-Hu(...)
wrote
Sunday, November 26, 2023
The Strategy and the excellent Response make pretty grim reading. In the light of the latest Autumn Statement and the Government's further disempowerment of local government, County Councils should make alliances with one another and with European cities in getting a courageous and imaginative grip on the urgent, practical path ahead. Offsets, by their nature, are only passing the problem down the line: we cannot buy-off the Climate Crisis. 85% respondents showed their concern about new-build failure: acres of houses built to '50s standards will cost a fortune to retrofit for home owners barely able to pay their mortgages.