In this second interview with Ayo Sokale, I talk about the Reading Climate Change Partnership (RCCP): who we are, and how we are trying to Get Reading Ready for the challenges of climate change.
This website, and the Reading Climate Change Strategy that it hosts, are going to help us to deliver our vision. However, it is critically important that we develop a strong network of people and organisations to really link through to everyone in the town. This is the Reading Climate Action Network (ReadingCAN), which I hope you’ll all join us in being a part of.
Ayo summed it up really nicely: “Reading CAN but it needs you to get engaged with it!”
It was my great pleasure to be interviewed by Ayo Sokale – one of Caversham’s new Councillors. This is the first in a series of five interviews. In this we talk about our plans for new Reading Climate Change Strategy.
We are writing the new strategy between now and Christmas. Please do get involved – you can find out more here:
It’s Spring again, and I can’t believe I’m half-way through my term as chair of the RCCP. The board met this morning, which was great. There is a busyness and anticipation about the Partnership at the moment…not surprising given all that is going on this year.
These last few months I have been focused on building capacity in the Partnership. Developing this website is one part – it has been labour of love for me so I hope you like it! And it going to play an important role as the container for our climate change strategy, and all of the information and events that come out of that.
The other thing has been working out how we hope to shape the Reading Climate Action Network, which will hopefully continue to grow and grow, as more people and businesses get involved with getting Reading ready to face the challenges of climate change. The development of our 3rd Strategy is going to be important in helping to build up the network. It will give everyone a really important thing to focus on.
In a couple of months we will have the public launch event, which is going to be really exciting. Groups will then start gathering people and ideas together, and crafting action plans that we make a real difference over the next 5 years. It’s something I hope lots of people get involved with. And by Christmas I look forward to seeing a really powerful strategy for our town.
Meanwhile, I am going to be busy helping to guide the development of Reading’s first Adaptation Plan. I’ll share more about this over the coming months. This Plan will paint an important picture of some of the challenges we face and what we can do about them. And this will mirror the work that Ben is doing, in the RBC, which will guide us on how we can cut our carbon emissions. Both plans will stand alone as important resources for the town but they will also be ready to feed ideas into the new strategy.
So yes, there is a lot going on, which is great! And the declaration of the Climate Emergency will hopefully add even more fuel to the fire. It is interesting (for me at least!) to look back at the Vision I set for us last year. We had just picked ourselves up from a very low point (and many thanks to my predecessor, Dan for guiding us through that!). So my vision was very much about growth. There is still much to do but – at this half-way point – I think we are doing really well.
Note that the petition is presented by 12yr old Skye and an Extinction rebellion campaigner at 10 mins in. It is great to see the passion and interest from our community here.
This is obviously a huge commitment for the town, with the demand for Zero Carbon by 2030…only 10 years away!
We will need everyone’s help to make this happen: public sector, businesses, national government, and all of us as individuals. We’re starting development of our third Reading Climate Change Strategy (2020-2025) so please do get involved and help us: come along to our Launch Event (13 June). There is a lot to do but together we can make it happen!
Wishing you well.
Chris Beales, RCCP Chair
Original post (8 Feb)
A very exciting news story for Reading: the council are looking to commit us to deliver Zero Carbon Reading by 2030. See the article in the Reading Chronicle (here).
We will update this post with more information over the next few days. There is obviously an enormous amount to do to make this happen…but it has to happen if we want any hope of limiting climate change to 1.5degC!
Over the next few months we will be starting our consultation on the next Reading Climate Change Strategy. This is an opportunity for everybody to get involved and help us get Reading ready for the challenges ahead.
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.
The annual UN Climate Conference, COP24 is taking place in Katowice, Poland. It started on the 2nd Dec and will finish on the 14th Dec. 190 countries are meeting at COP24 and must get results on action towards all countries’ Paris Agreement targets.
Teams of students from secondary schools across Reading, representing 15 countries from Fiji to USA, met in the Council Chambers on Wednesday 5th December to carry out their own talks on progress towards the Paris Agreement and try to negotiate raising ambition for more action.
Prof. Paul Williams from University of Reading addressed the children and emphasized the realities of global warming and human interference. Councillor Tony Page, lead member for Strategic Environment, said: “Climate change is a subject which young people rightly feel passionate about. The mock conference was opened by the Mayor of Reading, councillor Debs Edwards and children were asked to exchange ideas to tackle this global problem.
Councillors and Professors at the Summit
What is happening on Climate Change around the world?
On 3rd Dec 2018, Sir David Attenborough said the below at the COP24
“Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years, Climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”
The clear messages the students gave for everyone in the Council Chambers were on similar lines too:
the immediacy of the effects of climate change for every country in the world, the effects being especially hard-hitting for vulnerable countries
the complexity of decision-making and contradictions of policy-making, particularly where economic interests based on fossil fuels, and political reticence are taking precedence
the vital part that cooperation between countries can play in increasing momentum by helping to distribute finance, and to learn from great ideas that are already working elsewhere in the world.
School students discussing Climate Change
What can we do locally about Climate Change?
The second part of the conference brought Local Action into sharp focus. The extent of the commitment to climate action by Local Government was strongly conveyed by Cllr Tony Page in his opening words and Chris Beales, Chair of the Reading Climate Change Partnership. He stressed the part that each individual has to play, and what students in particular can do to help galvanise others.
Chris Beales at Reading Schools Climate Change Summit 2018
“…schools are really influential parts of our community, if you pass on what you know about climate change to your fellow students, and teachers…and you all pass on to your friends and families…we can reach a lot of people. And this is such an important issue…we need you to pester, and jump up and down about this until we get it sorted.” – Chris Beales
Sustainability experts from Reading Climate Change Partnership, Reading Council’s Sustainability Team and local organisations provided details of great local initiatives and ways for students to make a difference: from energy use in school, growing food, using green space differently through to signing up to a transport initiative or influencing recycling. Each school went away with at least one idea or ‘pledge’ for what they can do, and ICN will follow to make sure that the tools are in place for going about it.
Our huge thanks go to Reading Borough Council for hosting the event and Reading Climate Change Partnership for its support.
Councillors: The Mayor of Reading Councillor Debs Edwards, Councillor Tony Page, Deputy Leader of the Council
Keynote: Professor Paul D Williams, Professor of Atmospheric Science in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, UK http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~williams/
Workshop contributors: Nature Nurture, Reading Borough Council Sustainability Team, Reading Climate Change Partnership, Reading International Solidarity Centre, Reading 2050, Stuart Singleton-White COnsultant, University of Reading Dept of Environmental Science.
Representing Bangladesh at the Schools Climate Summit 2017
Representing Cuba at the Schools Climate Conference Summit 2017
Schools Climate Conference 2017
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.
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.
“The report highlights a number of climate change impacts that could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC, or more. For instance, by 2100, global sea level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C. The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once per century with global warming of 1.5°C, compared with at least once per decade with 2°C. Coral reefs would decline by 70-90 percent with global warming of 1.5°C, whereas virtually all (> 99 percent) would be lost with 2ºC.” – IPCC SR15 press release
Particular concerns for us in Reading, from those issues highlighted, include:
Flooding
Crop yields – with impacts on food availability / cost
Extreme heat – with potential for heat-related deaths
Knock on effects from other parts of the world that are exposed to more of highlighted risks
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.
Happily we have a start with the Zero Carbon Reading work that Reading Borough Council have done
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.
“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
Little Heath School student giving feedback to plenary after a workshop (Chris in the background)
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.
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.
Fiona Talkington (Chair)
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.
