A SPOKESMAN for Central Devon MP Mel Stride has slammed the actions of climate change campaigners.

A total of 64 Central Devon constituents who wrote to Mel Stride said they were disappointed that he declined to meet any of them to discuss their concerns about climate change.

On Thursday, June 25 the constituents wrote asking Mr Stride to press for a green and fair recovery from Covid-19, also requesting an online meeting on June 30 as part of the Climate Coalition’s virtual lobby of Parliament.

They delivered a copy of the letter to the Central Devon constituency office in Exeter, five of them cycling the 30-mile round trip from Moretonhampstead to do so.

More than 13,000 people joined the UK-wide lobby, with groups meeting 250+ MP’s online on June 30, or at a later date.  Some MP’s unable to meet on the day offered appointments at another time.

“We are disappointed that on such an urgent matter Mel Stride was unable to meet with us or suggest another time,” said Bee Denning, one of the signatories.

Others said they had found Mel Stride unavailable on previous climate lobbies.

Mr Stride, who is Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, has written with five other Chairs to urge the Prime Minister Boris Johnson to take on board the interim recommendations of the Climate Assembly to ensure that the Post Covid recovery contributes to reaching the UK goal of net zero carbon by 2050.

However, the constituents said that they are not reassured that the “Build, build, build” agenda will achieve this goal, and want to discuss with their MP how they and he can support more rapid progress to decarbonising the UK economy.

The Climate Change Committee’s report on June 25 mapped the range of climate risks for the UK using 2?C to 4?C scenarios, with little practical reference to the Paris Climate Agreement’s advised temperature limit of 1.5?C.

Even so, the report reveals what campaigners called “an almost complete lack of progress towards the UK’s legally enacted goal of net zero by 2050, with only four of the 21 indicators on track and two of 31 milestones reached on the road to net zero emissions”. 

“The UK is specially influential now as chair of the next COP26 climate talks; but we’ll have no credibility if we don’t walk our talk,” said Bundy Riley of Moretonhampstead. 

“The Committee on Climate Change is virtually telling the government to prepare for apocalypse, referring to the danger of a 4?C world,” said Chris Wood, one of the signatories.

“Yet he can’t find time to meet his constituents to listen to our concerns.” 

Tim Crosland, Director of the volunteer-based climate litigation charity Plan B. Earth, said on June 25: “In 2008 the Committee on Climate Change advised the Government that 4°C was the threshold of ‘extreme danger’, to be avoided at all costs.

“Today it is advising the Government to consider preparing for a 4°C world. As the leading climate scientist, Professor Johan Rockstrom has recently warned, a 4°C world implies the loss of not just millions but billions of human lives, with racially marginalised communities and those in the Global South on the front line. 

“It is madness to prepare for such a world and madness that the Bank of England is financing such an outcome. To the contrary the Government, along with the G20 and others, must do everything possible to transition our economy to bring it into compliance with the Paris Agreement temperature limit of 1.5°C, which it is Government policy to follow. It has no democratic mandate to use the COVID-19 financial stimulus to drive us to destruction.”

Gill Westcott from Cheriton Bishop said: “Today’s (June 30) announcements by the PM fall short of a green recovery, or even a New Deal like Roosevelt’s.

“The US spent five to seven per cent of GDP a year to put people back to work on public investment projects, including re-afforestation, whereas Johnson’s £5 bn deal is worth less than a quarter of one per cent.”

The signatories are doing what they can to promote local change.

“We are individually making our lifestyles more sustainable and want to work together in our communities to reduce our climate impact as part of a national effort.  We need government policy to support us and our local authorities in this.  We are writing again to Mel Stride asking him to meet with a few of us, at a time of his choosing in the near future,” said Ms Denning.

SPOKESMAN COMMENTS

A spokesman for Mel Stride, said: “The hand-delivered letter only gave Mel two working days’ notice ahead of the time they wished to meet online and was delivered to an unmanned office shortly before the weekend at which a small group took promo photos as part of a stunt.

“As is the case with most MPs, we are often booking meetings in his diary weeks or months in advance due to the number of people and campaign groups wanting to speak with him and the huge amount of correspondence and case work he receives (in a busy week he receives up to 1,000 letters and emails).

“However, Mel did promptly provide a written response (sent two working days after receipt) and emphasised his commitment to tackling climate change.

“In fact, the need to protect our environment for future generations was one of the reasons Mel got into politics in the first place.

“Before he entered Parliament in 2010 he spent two years going into local schools with his ’One Tonne Green Challenge’ - an initiative he founded to engage and educate our young people on the need to recycle and reduce our carbon footprint.

“From 2010 onwards he took this mission to Westminster, campaigning on plastic recycling and helping to steer a major energy bill through the House of Commons in 2013 which introduced strict carbon emissions targets.

“More recently as Chair of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee he helped to establish the Climate Assembly UK which he recently addressed remotely. Mel looks forward to supporting the Assembly report when it is published in September.”