Welsh campaigning family travels to Parliament to take part to mass climate lobby

Welsh climate campaigning family meets Tonia Antoniazzi MP at huge climate change lobby of Parliament

A Welsh family travelled to Parliament last week to meet with Tonia Antoniazzi MP for Gower to back efforts to halt climate change and pass ambitious new laws benefiting people and wildlife.

Emily Fairman, who made the journey to London with her two children on Wednesday 26 June, from Penclawdd near Swansea, joined thousands of people from around the country urging MPs to back action on climate change.

MPs were taken from the Palace of Westminster by rickshaw to meet constituents in the area around Parliament. Organisers say more than thousands of people from over 95 per cent of UK constituencies travelled to speak to their MPs.

Mother of two Emily said: “If someone came into your home and they went from room to room damaging things you would call the police to stop them. Well there is no police protection the earth can call upon. So it is up to us to notice the damage we are doing, and legislate globally to work as a unified humanity, to stop the damage we are inflicting on the earth we live on as guests of nature!”

The mass meeting, which was held in the area surrounding the Houses of Parliament, was organised by campaign groups The Climate Coalition and Greener UK. The two coalitions consist of more than 130 organisations representing over 15 million people – ranging from Oxfam and Christian Aid to the Women’s Institute and RSPB.

11 year old Meg, who is really passionate about climate change, said: “We could hit a rise in temperatures of 1.5°C as soon as 2030 which means 90% of corals die, and that means oceans die with them.  I don’t want to let that happen so that’s why I’m here, trying to get the government to stop it from happening before it has the chance to kill our planet!”

The lobby was held following an announcement by the government that it will set in law a target of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050. Campaigners at the lobby called on politicians to support UK emissions reaching net zero by at least 2045, due to the urgency.

This would mean gases emitted by cars, planes, buildings and farms would have to be cut and not exceed the amount that could be removed from the air through measures such as tree-planting. Scientists say this is necessary to avoid temperature rising more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, beyond which climate change will make floods and heatwaves worse in the UK and jeopardise food and water supplies for poor communities overseas.

13 year old Sam concluded: “Our planet may well be unique in the entire universe so we have a great responsibility to protect it from our own actions”.