Ask the Climate Question

The basic strategy of the “Ask the Climate Question” campaign is to use every opportunity to ask prospective Members of Parliament “What are you going to do about Climate Change ?” We need Climate Change to be in the top five issues of the General Election.

In the run up to the General Election, Party Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs) will be knocking on doors, kissing babies, gladhanding town dignitaries and appearing at hustings debates. This is our chance to make Climate Change the most talked-about issue.

Stick the pink ACQ bubble in your window to alert the PPCs that you will be asking about Climate Change, so that they can be prepared when you open the door to them.

For every question that a PPC raises, Ask the Climate Question. If they ask you if they can count on your support, Ask the Climate Question. If they talk about crime, standards in public life, immigration, the Economy, jobs, taxes and deficits in the public budget, Ask the Climate Question.

The Stop Climate Chaos team have organised people to be most active in the “marginal” constituencies, where voting could go any which way. There is an area coordinator in each marginal constituency to help with setting up and attending election events where we can all Ask the Climate Question.

Please contact Fiona Dear at Stop Climate Chaos, Telephone :   0207 802 99 89
e-mail    :   fiona@stopclimatechaos.org to find the coordinator for your area. If there isn’t one, please volunteer to help.

If you are not in a marginal constituency, please find out if you are near one and go and Ask the Climate Question there. Be active in your own area, too.

More information can be found here :-

http://www.tearfund.org/Campaigning/Election+2010/Election_ACQ.htm

http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/campaigning/general_election_climate_campaign/

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/ActNow/election2010/index.aspx

http://www.rspb.org.uk/election2010/events.asp

When you have organised your hustings event, or when you go to one, here are two top suggestions from CEL for you to ask:

1. Massive reductions in energy use in this country are necessary but will not be easy.  How unpopular are you prepared to be?  Give us an example of the courage you will show in this area.

2.  Addressing climate change requires a paradigm shift in our way of being in the developed world.  What will you do to change the culture of our country from one of human-buyings to one of human beings?

More suggested climate questions from CEL for the Hustings or when a candidate knocks at your door:

1. The Climate Change Committee said in December 2008 that to fulfil the UK 's climate change obligations we need to almost completely decarbonise the power sector by 2030. Many scientists are saying we need to move faster than this. Are you prepared to make the tough decisions required to meet this commitment and how will you do so?

Building a low carbon economy - the UK 's contribution to tackling climate change can be found at http://www.theccc.org.uk/pdf/TSO-ClimateChange.pdf . It also states that we need to establish "a clear and publically stated expectation that coal-fired power stations will not be able to generate unabated beyond the early 2020s."

EU requirements: 15% of energy from renewables by 2020 which translates to 30-35% of electricity from renewables by 2020.

Our wind generation capacity needs to be increased by a factor of 10. UK renewable energy strategy June 2008 to be found at http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file46799.pdf

2. Are your party's plans to meet climate change obligations based on i) wanting to do what is best for the UK economically, ii) fulfilling existing commitments imposed by the previous government or the EU, or iii) the moral responsibility to do what is right? Do you have the courage to put iii) before i) - to allow moral responsibility to trump maximising economic growth?

3. Have you read the New Economics Foundation's A Green New Deal ? Have you adopted any of its recommendations for massive investment in transforming our economy? If not, why not?

http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/green-new-deal

4. Do you believe that securing the continued viability of life on earth is more important than protecting economic growth? Which of your policies demonstrate this view?

5. Do you think that there is innate value in non-human species beyond their usefulness to us? Just as an example, if removing badgers completely from our countryside would eliminate bovine TB would you remove them?

6. A reasonable scientific view suggests that we may be able to burn all the oil in the ground and survive. What we cannot do is to burn the coal and the unconventional fuels such as tar sands. British companies such as BP and RBS are involved in tar sand extraction. What will you do to stop these companies, some using our money, endangering our planet so recklessly?