Climate Change – UK MEPs defy cameron

Photograph by LokoN

A few weeks ago, more than 10,000 of us e-mailed David Cameron to ask him to persuade Conservative MEPs to stick to government policy, and not oppose a vote for stronger climate change targets.

We teamed up with Greenpeace and Stop Climate Chaos to send a powerful message to the prime minster – don’t let your MEPs get in the way of stronger action on climate change.

We know that David Cameron felt the pressure from people power – he promised he would “work on” bringing his MEPs to heel. But this time,  he wasn’t up to the task.  A number of Conservative MEPs defied the prime minster by backing a weakened amendment, so that in the end the European Parliament did not adopt strengthened targets.

But it’s not the end of the road for plans to strengthen Europe’s climate change targets, from a 20% to a 30% cut in carbon emissions by 2020.  Climate change and environmental organisations, as well as youth organisations, MEPs from every nation in Europe, and growing numbers of leading businesses are all committed to strengthening the EU’s climate targets, to help build a low carbon future.

The defeat last month was a setback. But the demands from all of us for changes that would help build a more sustainable Europe aren’t going to go away. New proposals for strengthened targets will be brought back to Parliament as soon as MEPs are able.

How you think we could best work to together to tackle climate change? What should the focus be on – transport? Housing? Food?

Please share ideas and links to useful information below.