I attended a really thought provoking debate at Leeds University last Friday titled ‘Countdown to Copenhagen’   The panel included Franny Armstrong – director of The Age of Stupid, Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP – Secretary of State for DEFRA, Ashok Sinha – Director of the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, Edward McMillan Scott MEP – Vice-President of the European Parliament and Rt Hon John Prescott MP.  I came away empowered with new knowledge but also with a sense of frustration and fear at how many barriers seem to be in the way of effective action.

There are just 19 days left until the climate talks open in Copenhagen and it is now formally recognised by the G8 countries that if we exceed 2 degrees global warming we will have triggered runaway climate change leading to devastation worldwide.  The media and doubters have been playing the usual pessimist cards but there’s still hope that an agreement can be reached.  Yesterday, America & China started to make positive noises about achieving agreement at the talks so it’s more important that ever that we send strong messages of support to the world leaders that failure to agree is not an option.

If like me, you’d like to take some active steps towards tackling climate change issues here are a few things you might like to consider:

• Come and join THE WAVE – 5th December in London – march on Westminster to send a strong message to the world leaders in Copenhagen that an ambitious, fair and binding agreement is needed urgently.
• Sign up to Ed Milliband’s campaign for a fair and binding deal in Copenhagen
• Sign up to the 10:10 campaign and pledge to cut your personal carbon footprint by 10% in 2010
• If you haven’t already seen it buy or rent Franny Armstrong’s film – The Age of Stupid.  Watch Film Trailer
• Visit the Friend of the Earth’s informative website to find out more about climate change issues and how you can make a difference.  A key campaign for me is Fix The Food Chain Campaign.