MARTIN TELLS WYCHWOOD: KEEP PUSHING ON CLIMATE CHANGE (Cheltenham Liberal Democrats)

Cheltenham Liberal Democrats <info@cheltlibdems.org.uk>

MARTIN TELLS WYCHWOOD: KEEP PUSHING ON CLIMATE CHANGE

June 6, 2007 2:02 PM

Local MP Martin Horwood issued a call to action to Wychwood festivalgoers at the weekend to keep up the pressure on climate change. Martin, who is also a Lib Dem shadow minister on the environment, spoke at the popular music festival which was taking place at Cheltenham Racecourse at the invitation of festival partners Friends of the Earth. He addressed an audience in the festival's unique solar-powered cinema after a showing of Al Gore's influential film An Inconvenient Truth which has transformed attitudes to global warming in the USA.

Martin congratulated Friends of the Earth and all the supporters and campaigners who had emailed and sent postcards calling for a Climate Change Bill to add urgency to the UK government's response. The Government has now announced the bill will be published this summer and is currently consulting on its contents. "I don't think this Bill would have been published without your campaign" he told them. "But it's vital that you keep up the pressure. The Bill could be better. It could include higher targets for greenhouse gas reductions. It could include annual targets. And it could bring in major causes of CO2 emissions like aviation."

Martin also expressed his concern at the behaviour of the current US administration. "George Bush has now said he wants to move away from the Kyoto process and build a new process around 15 key nations. But we don't have time to reinvent the wheel and delay action still further. The UN-backed Kyoto process is the only game in town and the UK government needs to stand with our European partners in insisting on that. I know Tony Blair has welcomed George Bush's comments but I hope Gordon Brown will take a different stand when he takes over as Prime Minister."