UK: call for ‘campaigners’ to tackle climate change

Britain needs a generation of environmental and political campaigners to tackle climate change said Hilary Benn MP, the Secretary of State for International Development, in a speech to the New Local Government Network on 23 November 2006. He said that politics cannot only be about voting or signing petitions it also has to be about taking action in our personal lives too. Citing new evidence that public concern about the environment is six times higher than it was in 2003 he argues that small changes to our lives could have a global effect as climate change will impact most severely on the poorest people in the world. He said that the environment movement that is now gathering pace could be as successful as the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005 and argued that activists need to use new methods of campaigning to bring about real change. Speaking at the New Local Government Network (NLGN) Hilary Benn MP said: ?Make Poverty History and climate change are both rooted in global justice. But tackling climate change is a local issue too. Because as well as political pressure, it?s about us changing the way we live. It?s about putting politics at the heart of everything we do. Not an old kind of politics, limited to voting. A new kind of politics that informs how we live.? ?Britain needs a new generation of environmental and political campaigners who see a chance to make a difference and who take it. Because the best way to persuade the world that we mean it about climate change, is to show them that we mean it. ? Calling for a new type of politics, shared between politicians and the people, he said: ?Political power isn?t only something politicians have. It?s something people lend politicians. And the more politicians share power with people, the more power we all have to get things done.? The New Local Government Network (NLGN) is an independent think tank, seeking to transform public services, revitalise local political leadership and empower local communities. www.nlgn.org.uk