Council consultation on Climate Emergency Policies

[legalalien]

So - last Tuesday I emailed the cabinet member for the Climate Emergency to ask which bodies were included on its Partnership Steering Group (basically the means of engaging the community) on climate emergency policies. I haven't had a response, so was thinking of putting in an FoI request, and while googling to get some exact wording - seems there is now a consultation on this issue, launched online on Friday. So that's good (although given I've signed up to every notification I can find on the Southwark site and haven't received a notification on this, less good). Anyway, here's the link to the consultation, I suggest everone spreads it far and wide as these are really important issues for all of us to consider, and the policies have lots of practical implications for people's everday lives. The consultation closes on 15 January.

https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/climate-change-consultation/

[hpsaucey]

Thanks for posting.

HP

[cwjlawrence]

Thanks for posting this legalalien.

[legalalien]

For those who might not have received a copy of the most recent Southwark Life magazine, am attaching pics of the article about the community discussion etc so far.

[malumbu]

There is a much wider point on what we are doing as a nation and as a human race to manage/halt/reverse climate change. It was only a year or so ago that many were lauding Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg. Now much of the focus is on issues with local action and not the big picture. Unrestricted consumption is seen to be a good thing by governments in driving forward economic activity. I didn't see anything in governments ten point plan about more sensible use of resources. OK sustainable consumer activity wasn't the focus of this. But we wouldn't need to invest in creating tens of thousands of new jobs in a green revolution, if we didn't create the mess in the first place.

This may sound like soapboxing but I am genuinely interested in views on the big picture rather than parochial level. On the former bringing America back into the equation has to be a good thing.

There is a separate point about the government's magic money tree that I may start a thread on but I worry that the Lounge is dying when it comes to discussing the big issues in society. Where have so many people gone?

[legalalien]

I still haven?t had a response to my query (and then FoI request) about who is on the Partnership Steering group for this, but it appears that Extinction Rebellion Southwark and Fossil Free Southwark are on it, as they are currently threatening to withdraw: XR due to perceived lack of action / lack of citizen engagement on the issues and FFS with similar concerns and (paraphrasing) due to perceived

Council incompetence.

See https://xrsouthwark.earth/about-us/open-letter-to-councillor-johnson-situ

https://fossilfreesouthwark.wordpress.com/2020/11/27/climate-strategy-partnership-steering-group-statement-27-11-2020/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[malumbu]

Can you not stick to the ED issues thread Legal? The Lounge should be for wider debate. I'll happily stick to the wider debate, and exile myself from the other threads, apart from the occasional post about my garden birds. AS said just a year or two ago many posters would have been lauding Extension Rebellion.

[legalalien]

I'm happy to but someone else told me that if there were Southwark issues that weren't specific to Dulwich wards they should go in the Lounge. Surely you can just ignore the thread if you're not interested in it?