What can I do?

Here are some suggestions

Come along to our meetings and join our mailing list

Measure your own carbon footprint

 

Take actions to reduce your footprint Consider signing up to the 10:10 campaign and cut your emissions by 10% in 2010

 

Tell your friends. There are roughly 180,000 people in Portsmouth but when it comes to gossip it’s a very small place…so spread the word about our website.

Write to your MP. The MP’s for Portsmouth are Mike Hancock and Sarah McCarthy-Fry. There are also various MEP’s who represent the South East in the European Parliament. You can identify your MP and MEP and email them at www.writetothem.com . You also contact Mike Hancock through his website at http://www.mikehancock.co.uk/ and Sarah McCarthy-Fry at http://www.sarahmccarthy-fry.com/

The General Election is a key time to be putting pressure on the politicians. PCAN plans to organise a meeting with all candidates in Portsmouth and to send a questionnaire to all candidates to determine their views.

Ask the Climate Question is about getting candidates to think about and commit to climate action See Ask the Climate Question. They have identified a number of marginal constituencies where they think party leavers will be focusing a lot of attention. The nearest to us is Meon Valley which includes Waterlooville.

How to find candidates

To find your candidates, go to  UK Polling Report and click on ‘seats a-z’ and select your constituency. You will see a description of your constituency, including your current MP and the parliamentary candidates for all parties. You can then google their name for their contact details.

Questions to ask
If you have a chance to meet candidates the questions are obviously up to you. What is it about climate change that you're most concerned about? What climate action would you like to see your future MP take? Ask your own question, whether it's about international action, clean energy, green jobs, energy security, protecting the poor from the impacts of climate change, climate finance, or more.

But at Ask the Climate Question they have decided on three big questions:

• Will you commit to putting the UK on track to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, through strong domestic action?
• Will you commit to ensuring at least 15% of all energy comes from renewables by 2020?
• Will you commit to providing the UK’s fair share of finance to the developing world in addition to existing commitments on overseas development aid?

Other suggestions

• If elected, what will your party do to stop climate change?
• Will you ask your party leader to make a public statement before the General Election on the party’s commitments to climate action?
• How will your party cut the UK’s carbon emissions?
• What climate policies will you champion, if you become my MP?

Opportunities to meet candidates.

Election Hustings

8th April Ask the Climate Question with parliamentary candidates in Meon Valley.

The event will take place at 7:00pm on Thursday 8 April 2010 at Jubilee Hall, Crouch Lane, Horndean, Hampshire, PO8 9SU.  There is no need to book, but for more information, or to submit a question in advance, please contact Colin Higgins by telephoning 01273 763618,

Havant

Climate Question Time 16th April 7.30 at the Spring East St Havant. All welcome

Also Portsmouth News is organising a series of meetings with candidates. The first one is in Waterlooville Community Centre at 6.30 on 9th April and then others are organised forin Gosport on April 19, Fareham on April 20, Portsmouth south on April 21, Portsmouth north on April 22 and Havant on April 27.

The News says: If you want to attend, email your full name, address and a contact phone number to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Places will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

Those who are allocated places will be checked off a list on the door on arrival.

If you want to attend and there are specific questions you would like to ask, please include these on your email as there is more chance they will get heard if they are sent in advance.

There is no guarantee all questions sent in will be asked. The debate will by chaired by a senior member of The News' editorial team who will have ultimate discretion over which questions are put to candidates.

For more information

Resources

WDM have also produced a pre election briefing and suggested some key questions to ask

Christian Aid have produced an election toolkit

BOND (the UK membership body for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in international development.) together with members and partner networks has produced a joint International Development Vote Global Manifesto which will serve as the basis for the sector-wide General Election campaign. The manifesto asks all political parties to commit to fight poverty worldwide focusing on action in five key areas, including climate change.

 

Write to your local councillor about your concerns for Portsmouth. Your local councillor plays an important role in ensuring that Portsmouth City Council act in the best interests of it’s community. Don't forget that the City is owned by the people and the Council manage it on their behalf. You can identify your local councillors at www.writetothem.com using your postcode or on the Portsmouth City website t 

 

Write letters about anything climate related to the News, ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and other publications and people

Take part in the new debates on the News website

 

Send in ideas and information for our website or comment on the articles already there.

 

We do stalls from time to time – could you help to run them?

 

We could do with more handouts for our stalls. Energy saving, Calculating your carbon footprint, Zero Carbon Portsmouth, Flooding have all been suggested. We could send examples of what we've already done.

 

A good PowerPoint presentation covering the basics of Climate Change and what people can do would be useful.

 

Posters illustrating climate issues would be good. We haven’t got a publicity poster which we could take round to places we’ve identified.

 

We’re planning a Green Fair next year (July 17^th) and a Green Week in the lead up to it so help with that would be great.

 

Collecting information about insulation and the grants available is on our list of things to do.

 

We’re often invited to speak to local groups, including schools

 

We need supporters to take opportunities to talk to key people and let us know

 

We’d like members attending relevant local meetings including council meetings

 

Join on-line campaigning groups like Avaaz and 38 Degrees which send you quick email actions to take

 

Have a look at the campaign actions and petitions we have on this site

 

Can I really make a difference? What about America, China and developing nations?

Of course all of us in PCAN constantly ask ourselves the same questions, but we do believe that if people begin to change their attitude and behaviour at a local level then the knock-on effects can make a difference nationally and internationally through consumer patterns and pressure on local and national government.

How can we influence international agreements without taking action at home first?

Emissions are terrifyingly high in places like the US and Middle East and growing rapidly in China and India but you might also be surprised at how much action is being taken to cut emissions in other countries. Even Texas.

Emissions in the UK are much higher than most other countries See the WDM Climate calendar

And more of the CO2 already in the atmosphere is down to us.

Much of the rise in China’s emissions are down to producing consumer goods for us.

See this ‘Blame it on China’ report

We can’t stop poorer countries developing and probably using more energy.

But we can make that energy cleaner.

 

 Some Action Suggestions

 

Let’s clean up bailed out banks!

30.6.09
As UK taxpayers, we jointly own 70 per cent of the Royal Bank of Scotland, a bank that has invested heavily in dirty fossil fuel projects with questionable human rights standards across the world.

When we bailed out the banks, you would have expected the government to seize this golden opportunity to invest in building a low carbon future, instead of investing in projects that could lead to runaway climate change or human rights violations. After all, the government is committed to reducing our carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

But they failed us all. Since RBS was bailed out last October, it alone has been involved in financing loans to dirty fossil fuel projects worth a staggering £10 billion.

PCAN and People & Planet members protested at RBS in Commercial Road on April 1^st 

 

 

Now the World Development Movement is launching a campaign to challenge the Treasury's disastrous decision to finance bailed out banks without insisting they abide by basic environmental and human rights standards. So here’s a quick action to take:

Email the Chancellor to demand bailed out banks clean up their act

 

STOP CLIMATE CHAOS TWITTER PETITION FOR A STRONG 2020 EU TARGET

As you'll be aware, one of the few things to come out of Copenhagen was an "accord" which called for countries/ blocs to submit their 2020 emissions reduction targets by 31st January. The EU's 2020 target is currently 20%. They're considering 30% but if all the industrialised nations only make a 30% reduction in emissions by 2020, we'll be gambling on a 50:50 chance at best of keeping global warming below the 2 degrees C danger level.

Stop Climate Chaos is running a Twitter petition to target Gordon Brown directly, asking for:
* The UK to commit to 42% unilaterally now, and for Brown to ask the rest of the EU to also move up from their 20% aggregate target to the tabled 30% levels now.
* Brown to publicly declare that he will work to get the rest of the EU to agree to at least 40% as soon as possible afterwards.
* The process of agreeing this international deal to continue under the aegis of the UNFCCC.
The petition is online now (http://act.ly/1lw), but we'll have a big push Wednesday 20th January when the

 

UNFCCC are holding a "next steps after COP15" press conference, so please help us to make it huge by:
* Sending at least one message on Facebook & Twitter on Wednesday. 
* Emailing your supporters between now and Wednesday 20th encouraging them to sign the petition. If Wednesday's too soon for an e-mail out, telling your supporters about the petition any time before the end of January will be great.

 

GREENPEACE WANT US TO WRITE TO WORLD LEADERS
World leaders in Copenhagen failed to deliver the agreement necessary to keep us safe from climate change. In response Greenpeace is mobilising the largest movement civil society has ever witnessed, to demand a fair, ambitious, legally binding climate treaty.
Write to World leaders


CAFOD WANT US TO ASK GORDON FOR 40% CUTS  
Current EU commitments to 20% emissions cuts (based on 1990 levels), rising to 30% if a strong global deal is agreed, are simply not enough.
The target for the EU needs to be at least 40% if we want to avoid the danger level of a 2°C rise in global warming. Please write to Gordon Brown using his CAFOD action asking him to put pressure on the other EU leaders to sign up to the required 40% emissions reduction.


ADD YOUR NAME TO RSPB’S LETTER TO THE FUTURE
The RSPB's Letter to the Future will be used to hold politicians to account over climate change and the destruction of our environment, so the more names, the more impact!


FRIENDS OF THE EARTH ARE CALLING ON ED MILIBAND DEMANDING 40% REDUCTIONS
The UK needs to commit to a minimum of 40% emissions reductions (based on 1990 levels) to stand a 50:50 chance of avoiding global temperature rises exceeding the danger level of 2°C.
Use Friends of the Earth's action to write to Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, to demand the UK commits to at least 40% reductions and puts up more money to help those people who will be hit first & worst by the effects of climate change. Take action here


CHRISTIAN AID WANT US TO ASK GORDON TO GET THE NEGOTIATIONS GOING AGAIN
COP15 ended so badly, Christian Aid want you to write to Gordon Brown asking him to get the negotiations up and running again.

 

OXFAM DEMAND A REAL DEAL
After the disappointing result from COP15, we have to keep the pressure on world leaders. Use this Oxfam action to write to Gordon Brown and demand a real deal.

 

FOE WANT COUNCILS TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT CO2
They argue that local action to cut CO2 will boost the local economy, create jobs and slash your fuel bills.
Councils have a big part to play in tackling climate change and we want them to do much more right now. They must commit to cutting emissions in their area by at least 40 per cent by 2020.
Councils can reach this goal if they get more support from national government.
Pull your most serious face to show your support for the campaign and we'll use your photo to petition the Government for more money and less hassle for councils.
This means they can get on with things like fitting green energy, insulating homes and improving public transport. Find out more..

 

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