We are continuing to promote the CEE Bill - this includes running two further Zoom events
Both events will be open for you to join from 19.15 and the event will start promptly at 19.30.
- why is the CEE Bill important?
- what actions can you take?
- writing to your MP
- what about COP26
- what is a Head Fake?
We have produced an initial CEE Bill information pack which explains in more detail the action we can all take to promote the Bill as widely as possible. You can access this here. We will be adding to this as we develop the campaign so please check back for updates.
Please contact our MP Robbie Moore and ask him to support the CEE Bill. You also might look at the Scientists for Extinction Rebellion site - especially their publication Emergency on Planet Earth.
Please sign this petition calling on the Prime Minister to implement the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill here.
We want to create Ilkley wide support for this - please get involved - join the Slack channel #proj-ceebill.
And here is a Newsflash from the CEE Bill Alliance
Newsflash: We’re in a Climate and Ecological Emergency! OK, this probably won’t come as news to you, but unfortunately too many MPs didn’t get the memo.
Friday sittings in Parliament have been cancelled, which means that the ‘second reading’ of the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) Bill won’t take place. These sessions are the only opportunity for private member’s bills such as ours - i.e. laws proposed by MPs who are not in Government - to be debated. We had a second reading of the CEE Bill booked in for Friday, 12 March, which was pushed back to Friday, 26 March, and now we have this cancellation. So much for Fridays for Future - this feels more like Groundhog Day.
Second readings for these kinds of bills are always a bit of a damp squib. Placed at the end of the agenda, they are rarely actually debated. Of course, we knew this already, and there has always been campaigning method to this parliamentary madness. Having the Bill on the books gets our foot in the door. It means we can ask MPs to table debates, put forward questions in Parliament, raise the profile of the Bill within Westminster and around the country - and eventually convert this groundswell into ground-breaking legislative change. This is exactly the logic that led to the Climate Change Act 2008, which started life as a private member’s bill backed by a mass movement of grassroots campaigners.
So, really, the cancellation of Friday sittings is just a blip in the great scheme of things: our campaign is now backed by nearly 100 MPs, dozens of organisations and over 8000 campaigners like yourself. With this much momentum behind us, reintroducing the Bill in the next parliamentary session in spring will be a doddle. And as we grow, we become harder and harder for the Government to ignore. However, we can’t let this kind of prevarication pass without comment. We need MPs to know that they can’t keep putting us - and, you know, THE ACTUAL PLANET - on the back burner. We have to kick up a fuss.
Turning a damp squib into a firework
We want to mark the date when our second reading would have taken place with a Twitter storm that MPs won’t be able to ignore. On Friday, 26 March we’ll be asking you to record a video and tweet your MP asking them to back the CEE Bill (or thanking them if they already do). You can find out if your MP supports the Bill here. Campaigners are also planning a banner drop in support of the Bill on the same day. We’ll let you know more about this in due course.
Strength in numbers
From the Green Economy Coalition to the Permaculture Association, January has seen a host of new organisations come out in the support of the CEE Bill. Click here to see a full list and sign up your organisation (more logos to be added in the coming days!). We’d like to give a special shout out to new ally Students for Global Health, who are running a series of webinars on climate justice. The series started this evening, but you can still catch the 2nd, 3rd and 4th webinars over the next three Thursdays, from 18:00 to 19:00 GMT. Join the event series here.
Share and share alike
Many of you have been getting in touch about your activities on the CEE Bill up and down the UK - whether it’s engaging directly with your MP or promoting the Bill within your community. Check out this brilliant video by Greener Henley, for instance. And in Camden, campaigner Marianne Sheehan wrote to her local paper about the Bill, using the hook of a recent issue on climate.
If you’d like to share your ideas or ask questions of other campaigners directly, why not join us from 15:00 to 16:30 on Wednesdays for one of our Campaign Shares? The next session is on 3 February 2021. These gatherings are for everyone, whether you’re interested in joining the campaign or have been actively working on it for a while. Register here.
Past, present and future events
If you missed our Meet the Lib Dems: Supporters of the CEE Bill event last week, you can catch up on it here. For campaigners in Scotland, do take a keek at the ongoing The Future Speaks series. At each event in the series, high school students from a different region in Scotland ask local MPs and candidate MSPs questions about climate change obligations, education and action. This is a great opportunity to bring up the CEE Bill and make sure the MPs in attendance have declared their support! Finally, on 11 February from 18:00 to 19:00 GMT, the UK Youth Climate Coalition, who recently joined the CEE Bill Alliance, are organising an event about how young people can talk to their MPs. Members of the UKYCC team will be providing tips on engaging with MPs and introducing viewers to their tool for checking MPs’ voting records on climate.
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