Thank you for Asking the Climate Question!

Thank you to everyone that helped Ask the Climate Question in the run up to the election! Here’s just a snippet of what you, and the dedicated organisers of the Ask the Climate Question Campaign achieved:

• More than 13,000 e-mails were sent to candidates, Asking the Climate Question;

• More than 2500 people submitted Climate Questions to the Sky leaders’ debate – leading to a climate question being asked;

• Climate Question Times were held in 45 constituencies - and that’s not counting all of the other climate-focused hustings that Stop Climate Chaos Coalition members organised across the UK!

• An Ask the Climate Question hustings was held in Westminster, with Climate Change Ministers on Climate Change Day. The event was covered in the Guardian, the BBC and the Independent, and the three main party leaders responded to the Climate Question.

What was Ask the Climate Question all about?

The General Election on 6th May was a major opportunity to show all of those bidding for our votes just how much pressure there is on them to do the right thing. The Wave on Saturday 5th December 2009 was the biggest outpouring of public feeling to prevent climate chaos that the UK has ever seen. We built on that by making it clear to our candidates that we want effective action on climate change.

From nature lovers to students, faith groups and anti-poverty campaigners, thousands of people up and down the country asked their local candidates the Climate Question: on the doorstep, at public Climate Question Time meetings, through the local media, and via email, facebook, and twitter.

Climate change can be tackled. And any new Government has got a crucial role to play – developing clean energy, a low carbon economy fit for the future, and thousands of new green jobs.

We had three big questions to Parliamentary candidates:

• 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 genuine emissions reductions here in the UK?
• 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 the money that developing countries need to adapt to climate change and develop their economies in a low carbon way – on top of existing overseas aid commitments?