THINK Debate: Climate Emergency: Is the UK's response sufficient?

The UK has some of the world’s most ambitious targets when it comes to tackling climate change, pledging, for instance, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035. This year, the UK is hosting COP26, the UN’s climate talks, in Glasgow, which Boris Johnson said must be “a turning point” for humanity. But is the UK living up to its promises? The government has been criticised for allowing airport expansion and for building roads rather than investing in public transport, for giving the green light for a new coalmine in Cumbria and expanding oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

In 2019, the Committee on Climate Change, the UK’s independent advisory committee on climate change, issued a report showing that the UK was “failing to tackle climate change on almost all key measures of success.” At the publication of this year’s report, Lord Deben, a House of Lords peer and chair of the Climate Change Committee, said that in “almost every area [of carbon reduction] there has been serious delays, and where there hasn’t been delay, the ambition has not been realised in the action — we haven’t met the mark.”

Join us as we discuss the UK’s credibility, and responsibility when it comes to addressing the climate and ecological emergency.

Our Speakers:

Mike Childs - Head of Science, Policy and Research, Friends of the Earth
Mike Childs has worked at Friends of the Earth for 30 years in various roles, including leading the team that successfully campaigned for the Climate Change Act. His current role in Head of Science, Policy & Research. He started his working career in 1980 as a Lab Technician in the Biology Department at the University of Essex, where he worked for 4 years before leaving to study Biology at the University of York.

Jack Richardson - Climate Programmes Manager, Conservative Environment Network
Jack joined CEN after eighteen months working as a researcher in the House of Commons for three Conservative MPs, including a Foreign Office minister and a Defra minister. He’s also an Associate Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and is studying for his Masters in International Political Economy, alongside his work at CEN.

Sir Bernard Jenkin MP - Conservative member of Parliament for Harwich and North Essex since 2010

Councillor Mark Cory - Liberal Democrat councillor for Wivenhoe on both the Colchester Borough Council and Essex County Council

Joining Info:

Our THINK debates are open to all: Join us in person in Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall B or via Zoom (You will need to register your Zoom place).

THINK Seminars form part of the Big Essex Award so don’t forget to tap in.

Important information - this event is a COVID-secure event

Keeping Safe on Campus

In line with Government and Public Health England guidance on the COVID-19 pandemic, the University has introduced procedures and guidance to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our community on campus.

University of Essex Staff and Students

• Moodle training
• COVID-age health assessment
• Staff agreement
• encouragement to have been vaccinated
• encouragement for a negative LFT on the day of the event - if not within previous 72 hours
• encouragement not to attend campus if positive, symptomatic or living with someone positive
• encouragement to wear face coverings when not actually eating or drinking

Visitors to the University of Essex

• encouragement to have been vaccinated
• encouragement for a negative LFT on the day of the event - if not within previous 72 hours
• encouragement not to attend campus if positive, symptomatic or living with someone positive
• encouragement to wear face coverings when not actually eating or drinking
• contact details to be taken via the NHS App QR code or manual details retained for track & trace purposes in the event of an outbreak

Any further questions please email events@essex.ac.uk

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