Community Climate Gathering in Bishop's Stortford on weekend of November 6-7 taking place during COP26 UN climate change conference in Glasgow
The Indie's Green Watch correspondent Louise Tennekoon writes about environmental matters from a Bishop's Stortford perspective...
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, you probably know that COP26, the UN climate change conference in Glasgow, is just around the corner. You probably also know just how important these talks are.
We are at a pivotal moment. Back in 2015, world leaders met in Paris and agreed to take action to keep the rise in average global temperatures "well below 2C" and ideally to limit it to 1.5C.
The science is clear and unequivocal: to achieve this goal, global emissions of greenhouse gases must decline by 50% by 2030. With the plans that countries have put in place so far, global emissions will actually increase by 16% by 2030. That's how far we are moving in the wrong direction.
Can world leaders bridge this gap in Glasgow? Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg expects more "blah, blah, blah". The Queen has expressed her irritation about leaders who "talk, but... don't do". One of my friends told me last week that the conference is being dubbed COP-out.
With so much hinging on what's happening in Glasgow, you can be forgiven for wondering: what's the point of local community action? Why bother?
I've been pondering this question as we plan the Community Climate Gathering – a community meeting taking place here in Bishop's Stortford on the weekend of November 6 and 7 to explore what we can do to improve our environment and fight climate change in our town. I believe there are (at least) five reasons why community action is important.
1. It makes us more resilient. It makes us more able to withstand and recover from the shocks that changing weather patterns will bring to our way of life: heavier rainfall, heatwaves, water shortages and possible interruptions of food and power supplies.
We have seen in recent months just how easily global supply chains can be disrupted and the impact this has on us. The more resilient and self-reliant we are – growing food closer to home, generating our own power, supporting a vibrant network of local businesses, taking care of each other – the more we can bounce back.
2. It puts pressure on our elected representatives. Taking visible action in our community makes it harder for our councillors and our MP to patronise us or dismiss us when we ask them to take action in turn. Community action turns up the political heat.
3. It builds our capacity to change the way we live. Community action can give us all a taste of change - the experience that something different is possible and can be positive. It starts small and over time, we become more open to change.
4. It builds community. For each person who stops me in the street to talk about environmental issues, there are another 10 or even 100 of you who care, who want to do something but don't know where to start. Imagine if we all got together and started doing something. What might we achieve?
5. It makes you feel better. The best antidote to anxiety is action. It's really important to stay hopeful, because it's when you slip into despair that you feel like giving up. Working together, we can help each other stay optimistic.
Above all, there's power and possibility when we gather together, so I really hope that you will come along to the Community Climate Gathering on November 6 and 7.
There will be two sessions. On the Saturday morning (9am-1pm) we will figure out where we are and where we want to be, imagining the future we want for our town. On the Sunday afternoon: (1pm-5pm) we will focus on what we can do together to make that future happen.
We hope you'll want to come along to both sessions, but if you can only make one, that's fine. We won't be hearing from 'experts' –this is our chance to talk about our town, our environment and our future.
We'll have a professional community facilitator to help us, who has worked with everyone from Greenpeace UK to indigenous tribes in the Amazon. It won't be all work – there will be plenty of time to make new friends and, of course, there will be coffee and cake!
We need your knowledge, your unique perspective and your experience, to help us generate ideas which can be turned into action. You don't need to be an expert – if you care and you feel ready to get stuck in to the issues and to make change happen, you should come along.
Find out more and register at www.communityclimategathering.org.
