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Hello all.

I'm Francis, Political Assistant to the Green Liberal Democrats and our first full time staff member.

I wanted to talk a little bit about who I am and the work I have been up to this month, in the first edition of my montly report as part of our pledge for greater transparency.

It was WET!!

Thursday and Friday were lovely sunny days, cooped up in the Green Zone in meetings looking out, so we were looking forward to getting some fresh air on the march! The trouble was that the weather forecast on Fatima`s phone indicated a certainty of rain during the day on Saturday - and the forecasting record for her weather service is remarkable accurate.

International Award in time for COP26

Chair of the Green Liberal Democrats, Keith Melton, has won a Global Award from the journal, CEO Monthly, which has been making such awards for the last ten years. The journal is circulated to 60,000 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) worldwide every month and each year awards are made in a variety of categories, including awards for Chairpersons. The awards for 2021 are shown on the CEO Monthly Website here.

We got a bit wet during the march last saturday in Glasgow...

But... we`re

Back Home in the dry now!

Fatima and I left Glasgow this morning to drive, with our caravan, back home to Nottinghamshire. Nice dry day for packing up and driving for six hours! Listening to the radio 4 news at lunchtime and then watching the TV news when back home, the draft agreeement for COP26 really looks a pretty tame affair. Lots of nice words hoping for this and urging that and calling for the other, but precious little in the way of hard ACTION.

All Lib Dem County Cllrs have written a joint letter to the Prime Minister calling on him to support local councils in their attempts to move towards net zero carbon emissions.

In their letter sent on Friday, they write "The UK's net zero target can only be achieved if Government and local authorities work seamlessly together. However we note that the National Audit Office commented in July that there are serious weaknesses in central government's working with local authorities on decarbonisation, stemming from a lack of clarity of local authorities' overall roles, piecemeal funding and diffuse accountabilities."

Steve Mason - Day Three

'Day Three #COP26Glasgow

Demo by Friends of the Earth, a hob nob with the Times and a quick chat with Dale Vince of Ecotricity.

The take away moment from today?

Arctic base camp.

"13,000,000 litres of water melts every second in Greenland alone..."

Just think on that...

If we lose this battle, then we can kiss goodbye to the UK Climate, it will not be as is now.

Day One - 1^st November 2021

Just a short entry from me (Keith) this morning, before I spend the rest of today making sure the caravan is ready to go early tomorrow and is fully packed.

My first COP26 thought this morning was prompted by a news item last night showing our PM - Boris Johnson - speaking at the G20 meeting in Rome. He was making it clear that we could not doubt that we were in a Climate Change crisis and we could not "...procrastinate any longer...!" What puzzled me, and has puzzled me for a long time to be honest, is that Governments around the world know the facts and yet allow themselves to be `lobbied` out of making the right decisions for the security of the planet.

On Wednesday, Rishi Sunak's long awaited - and frequently leaked - 2021 budget was revealed in the House of Commons. Let's go over three of the key headlines.

Tax Cuts for Domestic Flights

According to a study commissioned by Greenpeace and published on Wednesday, over one third (34%) of the busiest short-haul flights in Europe have viable, less polluting train alternatives. Researchers found that European nations could replace almost all the top 250 short-haul flights and save 23.4 million tons of CO2 per year, equal to the annual CO2 output of Croatia. Aircraft on routes shorter than 700km emit 250grams of CO2 per person per km. In comparison, long haul flights and and even diesel cars look squeaky clean, at 195 and 171g/km respectively. Electrified rail, however? 35g/km. Eurostar? 6g/km. Aviation has been the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe in the last three decades, whilst our trusty locomotive is only gaining in efficiency.

<< Back to Events

Special Interest Group for Sustainable Development

Convenors David Watts & Martin Horwood

The steering Group for this SIG has already met and the first full meeting of the group to consider future campaigning on the issues involved will take place on Zoom on Thursday17th June. The Zoom link will be circulated closer to the meeting date but please contact the convenors to express your interest in being part of the group.

Prologue - 31^st October 2021

Hello. I am writing this on Sunday 31^st October, watching the opening ceremony. I am calling today`s entry into our Diary the Prologue, so that Day 1 will be on the 1^st November, otherwise it could become really confusing!

So, after much fanfare, the 26^th Conference of the Parties - COP26 - is starting. The United Nations Climate Change Conference. Welcoming delegates from many countries travelling huge distances to be here, to bring about change which must be transformative. Setting limits established at the Paris meeting of 2015, the Spanish President of the previous conference making claims of what has already been done… it all sounds very positive.