Closing summary
- More than 9,000 people have attended a mass lobbying event of MPs in Westminster, according to organisers
- At least 250 MPs have been lobbied so far, I’m told by the Climate Coalition, which organised the event
- An unscientific and non-exhaustive sweep of MPs’ Twitter accounts suggests that far more Labour and SNP MPs have been meeting constituents to discuss their concerns about climate change
- The Bishop of Salisbury has said the UN climate summit in Paris later this year must “further our commitment towards fair, ambitious, accountable and binding climate change agreements, nationally and internationally”
- Green MP Caroline Lucas raised the lobby at PMQs, and asked George Osborne whether the MPs’ pension fund would be divesting from fossil fuels
I’m going to wrap up the liveblog now – we’ll have a news story on the lobbying event soon.
Bishop of Salisbury the Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam, the Church of England’s lead bishop on the environment, addressed 2,000 people on climate change at ecumenical services in Westminster earlier today. The Press Association reports:
We are celebrating God’s creation and saying that we care for it, and we are expressing our concern that the human race is not looking after it properly.
This is not just our individual concern. It is our Christian concern together as the Church. It is the concern of people of all faiths. It is our human concern in solidarity with all people. The world is our home.
The science, economics and politics all point in the same direction. We need a new way of living, using the creativity of our intelligence and God’s spirit.
All around the world people are recognising the problem. The journey through Paris and the UN climate change summit at the end of the year must further our commitment towards fair, ambitious, accountable and binding climate change agreements, nationally and internationally.
Christian Aid, one of the NGOs that have helped organise today’s event, are claiming more than 9,000 people have attended in person. There’s no independent verification of the numbers.
Updated
Sadiq Khan, one of the Labour candidates hoping to fight the London mayoral election, said that “we need to take action on climate change”, and welcomed meeting local residents at today’s mass climate lobbying event.
Labour MP @SadiqKhan heads off in a #ForTheLoveOf rickshaw to hear from his constituents about ending climate change pic.twitter.com/Ha2N7QubeN
— The ClimateCoalition (@TheCCoalition) June 17, 2015
The Press Association has been out and about asking people why they’ve joined the lobbying today:
Teenager Rebekah Fleming, 15, from Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales, said she had come to London “to show that lots of people care. It’s not something that we should just be talking about, something needs to happen now”.
She said she wanted to know what MPs were doing about climate change, what they were planning, and what they would do when they went to the UN talks in Paris at the end of the year.
And she said: “Everyone says renewables are not reliable, but if they put money and time into changing that, that’s going to pay off a lot for the future.”
Her friend 15-year-old Caitlin Howell said climate change was very important. “It should be at the top of the priority list. We shouldn’t be debating about whether to do something about it.”
Bee keeper Caroline Luxford, who lives on the Buckinghamshire Bedfordshire border, said she was very worried about climate change, raising concerns about fracking and the fate of Britain’s bumblebees.
“I’ve got children and I hope one day I’ll be a grandmother, and I want the world to carry on, it’s a beautiful, wonderful world.
“I think it’s a shame people have got to do things like fracking, that’s really worrisome.”
One of the main asks of MPs today is that they support a strong deal at the UN climate summit in Paris later this year. What is Paris all about?
The governments of more than 190 nations will gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change.
Read more in our in-depth explainer here.
It’s not just individuals who want a decent deal in Paris – last week, 80 British companies including Tesco, John Lewis and Sky wrote to David Cameron asking him for one too.
Here’s Hugo Tagholm, chief executive of Surfers against Sewage, who’s in Westminster today because he says surfers’ favourite sites in the UK “are at forefront of the impacts of climate change.”
I’ve been talking with Karen d’Artois, a nun at today’s ‘For the Love Of’ climate change lobby. She was talking about the Pope’s encyclical, which is due to be published on Thursday.
“I’m hoping that both Catholics and non-Catholics will listen to Pope Francis. It’s addressed to everyone on Earth… the creation we live in is for all of us and we all have a duty to act responsibly,” she said.
The ‘drinking coffee’ sign she’s holding up is her example of something she’s concerned will be threatened by climate change – i.e. ‘for the love of drinking coffee’. Officials in Vietnam, where the UK sources a quarter of its coffee from, earlier this year blamed climate change for a drought affecting coffee growers there.
Updated
Former environment minister, Caroline Spelman, is one of the few Conservative MPs who has been making a noise on Twitter about today’s event. She said that constituents telling MPs about why they care about climate change is “such an important message”.
Apart from the Greens’ Caroline Lucas, the Labour party looks like it’s the most engaged with the mass lobbying, judging from a quick scan of Twitter. Shadow international development secretary of state, Mary Creagh (previously shadow environment secretary) is among those attending, along with Jo Stevens for Cardiff Central and Debbie Abrahams for Oldham East & Saddleworth.
Updated
Just 636 to go...
The rush is on, a good start w/ @ellie_in_public #ForTheLoveOf @Natures_Voice @TheCCoalition pic.twitter.com/yiUOIr8e7t
— Lynne Osgathorpe (@Lynniebumble) June 17, 2015
Some of the MPs are taking part remotely, too, it appears:
Good on @mritchiemp @SDLPlive for meeting us via Skype to address our climate change concerns #fortheloveof pic.twitter.com/4azg26AnWT
— caromaline (@caromaline) June 17, 2015
Updated
Among the celebs expected down at the lobby today are Arthur Smith, Olympic rower Andrew Hodge, snowboarder Jamie Nicholls, actress Sally Hawkins and comedian Sally Phillips. There’s also a rally with speakers due at 4.30pm.
People are beginning to arrive in force to quiz their MPs:
One hour until 10,000 of us Speak Up For The Love Of. We do it #fortheloveof oceans! @TheCCoalition pic.twitter.com/3lVJgtKwsM
— SurfersAgainstSewage (@sascampaigns) June 17, 2015
St Marys Newcastle getting ready to meet the MPs! @CAFOD @CAFODSchools #fortheloveof pic.twitter.com/5dwcqi3jIS
— catharine (@Catharineee123) June 17, 2015
Great to see so many @wwf_uk supporters turn out to lobby parliament on #climatechange #ForTheLoveOf our planet pic.twitter.com/LfiG425C2M
— David Nussbaum (@DavidNussbaum1) June 17, 2015
Nussbaum is WWF UK’s CEO
And they're joined by anglers, bee keepers, walkers, cyclists all calling for #climatechange action. #ForTheLoveOf pic.twitter.com/ghN9Cp6k8l
— Emily Beament (@paenvironment) June 17, 2015
Howard is talking to Lucas outside parliament about the pension fund right now – you can watch it here on Periscope.
She says “we are having some extraordinary responses” back from the fund’s trustees.
Updated
It’s not just people outside the house that are talking about today’s event. Parliament’s only Green MP, Caroline Lucas, raised it at George Osborne’s PMQs, and asked if MPs’ pension fund will be moving its money out of fossil fuels.
Osborne ducked the question, but this is a long-running campaign by Lucas and it doesn’t look like she’s going to let up – she first asked the chairman of the fund’s trustees back in October 2014. He said no. Environment secretary Liz Truss thinks it’s the wrong idea too – maybe one of her constituents will raise that today?
Updated
I’ve been talking to Liz Crew, from Moorland in Somerset, which was badly hit in 2014 by the flooding during England and Wales’ wettest winter in 250 years.
“We feel that life’s still not back to normal, all this time later. We really don’t want to go through it again. I feel it’s quite important that somebody speaks out and helps promote the fact we do need to address climate change,” she said.
Updated
Thousands of people are in Westminster today to lobby their MPs on climate change. Guardian journalist Emma Howard is down by the Thames to cover the event, and I’ll be covering it live from here, so please do email me, tweet me and post in the thread below if you’re attending.
Howard notes the commitment of some of the constituents, who include farmers, bee keepers and surfers, many of whom had a very early start this morning:
The sun is shining and the rickshaws are ready and waiting for the MPs to emerge from Prime Minister Questions at 1pm. 10,000 people from constituencies all around the country have travelled to Westminster today for one reason: to lobby their MP on climate change.
There are Catholic nuns passionate about poverty, surfers (complete with their boards) concerned about the oceans and farmers affected by the flooding in Somerset in recent years. Some have travelled from Scotland or Cornwall and got up as early as 2am to be here. Some will meet their MPs in the House of Commons but most will wait outside around Westminster and along the river.
Billed as the “UK’s biggest ever climate change lobby”, the event comes just a day after the European Commission warned the UK is on course to miss its 2020 renewable energy target, and a day before Pope Francis is due to formally issue his long-awaited encyclical on the environment (it leaked on Monday).
