Reading Climate Action Network website
Chris Beales (RCCP Chair) and Ben Burfoot (RBC Sustainability Manager) will present the Reading Climate Change Strategy, and discuss plans to adapt to the changing climate and to reduce our carbon footprint. These are hugely important challenges for our town and will be big factors in shaping the Reading 2050 vision.
Under the General Data Protection Regulations 2018 you have the right to know what data is held under your name, what it is used for and how to get it deleted. you also have a right to request a copy of the data held at any time. If you want a copy of your data, want something changed or removed and cannot do it yourself, please contact info@readingcan.org.uk (climate.change@reading.gov.uk).
This is intentionally a information only website. We host the Reading Climate Action Network Strategy and information, weblinks and events associated with the activities of the Network.
We do have a mailing list, which you can contact us to join.
Otherwise, we do not collect personal information through the website. We have disabled the commenting facilities and we do not use any online forms to collect any of your details. Any personal information (e.g. names and photographs) will have been agreed by one of the website authors before being manually posted. We do not store any personal information in cookies.
This site contains links to other sites. The Reading Climate Change Partnership is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such web sites.
This website developed using WordPress. It uses the Jetpack plugin, which does collect some analytics data. For details please see the following statement, which is copied from https://jetpack.com/support/for-your-privacy-policy/
Data Used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID (if logged in), WordPress.com username (if logged in), user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code. Important: The site owner does not have access to any of this information via this feature. For example, a site owner can see that a specific post has 285 views, but he/she cannot see which specific users/accounts viewed that post. Stats logs — containing visitor IP addresses and WordPress.com usernames (if available) — are retained by Automattic for 28 days and are used for the sole purpose of powering this feature.
190 countries will meet in Katowice, Poland in December for the annual UN Climate Conference, COP24 and it must get results on action towards all countries’ Paris Agreement targets.
Teams of students from six local secondary schools will also meet on 5th December to carry out their own debate on progress towards the Paris Agreement and try to negotiate raising ambition for more action.
They will represent 14 different countries from Fiji to the USA. As in the real COP24, the country teams will have a significant challenge as a summary produced by the organisers, InterClimate Network, shows that progress towards Paris targets has been slower than the world needs.
In the second part of the afternoon, local sustainability leaders and active organisations will work with students in mini-workshops linked directly to RCAN’s themes. We want students to be encouraged to generate their own pledges and inspired to take on their own climate action back at school.
Thanks go to the Mayor of Reading and Reading Borough Council for hosting this event and to Reading Climate Change Partnership and RBC’s Sustainability Team for their active support.
| School | Countries |
|---|---|
| The Bulmershe School | Bangladesh, Indonesia and Australia |
| Highdown School | Fiji and USA |
| Kendrick School | EU/Poland, India and Nigeria |
| Maiden Erlegh School in Reading | Cuba and UK |
| Prospect School | Kenya and China |
| Waingels College | Brazil and Russia |
The IPCC SR15 was released on 8 October 2018 with the strong messages that we have only 12 years to limit global warming to 1.5 degC.
Particular concerns for us in Reading, from those issues highlighted, include:
Notice that global temperatures have already risen by 1 degC, and we are already seeing the extreme weather events associated with this level of warming.
It is sobering to notice that our current trajectory is to hit 1.5 degC by 2040. It doesn’t have to be that way though, and SR15 details how we can reduce emissions to meet the 1.5 degC target.
Reflecting on this graph: there is a massive job that we need to do…not least to fundamentally change the political and economic focus towards tackling this.
Chris Beales, RCCP Chair, Oct 2018
It was my great pleasure to attend the InterClimate network (ICN) National Summit, on the 27 June. And it is great that the RCCP have been able to contribute towards the work of ICN, and helped to support the event.
The day itself was fantastic…it did help that it was held at Portcullis House, and was attended by MPs, which gave it a real feeling of importance. There were schools in attendance from across the country, sharing ideas and inspiration. There was a brilliant energy in the room.
Read the full write-up on the ICN website here: http://interclimate.org/projects/climate-voices/national-summit
“I just wanted to say a huge thank you to you both for giving us the opportunity to attend the conference today. It was very well organised and our students were really inspired by your guest speakers and the students from the other schools, as were we, as teachers. The students already have plenty of ideas to take back to Little Heath and are already planning to meet the head to kick start some campaigns.
As a school we already look at food insecurity and actively support our local food bank, as well as looking at ways in which we can save water. We now have fresh ideas for plastics and energy efficiency in the school and look forward to making more changes and educating our students.”
E Park, Head of Geography, Little Heath School
Come and join us at the Reading Town Meal on Saturday 29th September. We are going to use this as an opportunity to launch our new website and the revised Reading Climate Change strategy.
Please do come and find us on one of the stalls. You can find out more about our aims for the next couple of years, and find out how you can get involved.
and there’s still time to sign up and help with this year’s meal. Can you provide some excess vegetables from your garden? help to collect equipment and supplies? help on the day? see the main town meal website for more options and to sign up
The Environment Agency has just finished a consultation on a proposed flood alleviation scheme for Reading and Caversham. This finished on the 26th July but you can view the plans here:
The website describes what happens next:
The Environment Agency will consider all of the following information and use it together to make a decision on which, if any of the options we will take forward.
There is an opportunity here to take advantage of some of the £2.8 billion that the government has made available for flood alleviation, between now and 2021. All schemes will need to be partnership funded though so we will need to raise money to make this happen.
Hopefully, we can get the consultants to model the impacts of climate change on future River Thames floods. We do expect floods to be bigger and more frequent in the future so it is important that we prepare. It is not just people’s houses and businesses that will be affected in a big flood: notice that both Caversham and Reading bridges could be affected, which would have knock-on affects for many people trying to live and work in the town.
This Friday, 27th July – 1pm – I’m very excited to be joining Fiona Talkington (BBC Radio 3 presenter and festival curator), and 3 other panelists to talk about “ice, climate change, silence, darkness and beyond”. It’s going to be a really interesting cross-over between what I’ve been doing as part of the Reading Climate Change Partnership, and my other world as a musician.
You can book free tickets through: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/event/climate-symposium-world-without/
Internationally renowned ice musician and Director of Ice Music Festival Norway.
Emile is a photographer, writer and broadcaster. Passionate about music, his acclaimed Welcome to the Quiet Zone was recently repeated on BBC Radio 4.
Local musician and passionate environmentalist, Chris is Chair of the Reading Climate Change Partnership.
Nyani Quarmyne’s photographs of coastal erosion in Ghana bring a moving and powerful perspective to the discussion. Nyani is from Reading’s Twin Town of Düsseldorf.
BBC Radio presenter on Radio3 and 4 for over 20 years, Fiona was brought up and still lives in Reading. She has worked extensively in Norway with music, literature, art and film and has hosted and chaired events in the worlds of the arts, health and education in the UK and abroad.
Admission is free but tickets must be booked through Reading Fringe Festival
I had a good meeting with Matt Rodda (MP for East Reading) this afternoon. We talked about the plans that we have for the RCCP over the next couple of years, and what Matt can do to help us out. Of particular interest:
Chris Beales
RCCP Chair
13/7/18
“Climate Just is an information tool designed to help with the delivery of equitable responses to climate change at the local level. Its main focus is to assist the development of socially just responses to the impacts of extreme events, such as flooding and heatwaves, as well as supporting wider climate change adaptation. It also includes issues related to fuel poverty and carbon emissions.”
There is a lot of useful information on this website, which will be useful for many members of RCAN.