Letter to Oxford Times

Dear Sir - In March this year the Government published its draft Climate Change Bill, which sets out a legally binding framework for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions which lead to climate change.

This is now in a consultation phase, in which members of the public are invited to submit their comments by June 12.

As representatives of local environmental and community groups in Oxfordshire, we welcome this development, but we believe the current draft of the Bill does not go far enough towards achieving the size of emissions cuts we need.

The Bill's target of a 60 per cent cut in carbon dioxide by 2050 needs to be at least 80 per cent to take account of the latest science The draft Bill proposes five-year "carbon budgets", but this is longer than the electoral cycle and so would make it too easy for successive governments to blame each other for any failure to meet the targets. Instead, we propose three per cent cuts every year The two fastest growing sources of emissions, international aviation and shipping, are excluded from the Bill The Bill should increase aid targets to help communities in poor countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The consultation offers an opportunity for these and other shortcomings to be addressed, and we, therefore, encourage your readers to respond to it by visiting the I Count website at www.icount.org.uk or writing to Patrick Erwin/James Hardy, Climate Change Legislation Team, Area 4/F5, Ashdown House, 123 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6DE.

Colette Humphrey, Banbury Friends of the Earth,Maureen Dyroff, Chinnor & Thame Friends of the Earth,Hilary Blake, Christian Aid, Oxford Unit,Maranda St John Nicolle, Christian Concern for One World,Tim Baster, Climate Outreach and Information Network,Jill Haas, Oxford Campaign against Climate Change,Karl Wallendszus, Oxford Friends of the Earth,David Taylor, Oxford Oxfam Group,Ingrid Royle, Oxfordshire Greenpeace Group,Kevin Meaney, Oxford World Development Movement Group,Martin Hodson, Sage (Oxford's Christian Environmental Group),Simon Pratt, Sustrans South East Regional Office,Adam Twine, Director, Westmill Wind Farm Co-operative Ltd,

Global Warming- Polar Bears

Excellent short film about the fate of Polar Bears

Winning over the over 50's.

I’ve just come back from speaking to a Transport and General Workers Union retired members meeting on the subject of the Campaign Against Climate Change. There were about 40-50 people at the meeting and it was great to see the level of political discussion going on in the small community centre in East Oxford at three o clock on the Thursday afternoon. The chair did his best to put me at ease and talked about how they give local MP Andrew Smith a hard time when he pops in from time to time. When I came into the room they were discussing the issue of Yunush Baksh, a Unison health activist being victimised by his management. So apart from the age difference and the working men’s club seating arrangements I thought I had a fair shot at the getting some of the message over.

However, although it seemed to be going well (and they were an extremely polite audience), it was clear from the discussion that there was widespread scepticism about the science of gobal warming and a general feeling that nature will sort itself out. There was a lively discussion from the floor which would put most TU branches to shame. I felt a bit deflated at the end at the lack of interest, but then when you’ve been fighting all your life and your still on the streets protesting for a decent pension, some relative youngster telling you that the climate is the key battle hardly sounds very attractive. I had to agree that yes we are technically still in an ice age and that at some point in the far distant future we could be under a mile of ice anyway, so it really is a question of perspective.

I had an entertaining debate will a gentlemen who had obviously bought into the whole 'Great Global Warming Swindle' argument, in fact that program had far more resonance than Gore's Inconvenient Truth film which no one seemed to have heard of. Getting that film out into groups like this would be an extremely valuable exercise. It is easy to forget that we still haven't won the argument amongst large parts of the population.