All we wanted for Christmas was a meeting with our Councillors!

With the past 10 years being the warmest on record and the global average temperature approaching 1.6 degrees above pre industrial levels, climate change is no cheery topic this Christmas. The World Meteorlogical Organisation's State of the Climate 2024 update issued a Red Alert, urging immediate global action to tackle the climate crisis. It is now more imperative than ever to act!

The world has seen some devastating weather in 2024, with everything from wildfires and extreme temperatures to tropical cyclones. In the UK, the village of Fairbourne is at risk of being abandoned in the future due to unsustainable rising sea levels and we’ve had our share close to home in Gedling, with floods affecting large residential areas. 

Gedling Climate Change Group, a local group of volunteers from the Gedling area who look to inform, explain and campaign on the climate and nature crisis, have been trying to ensure we are doing our bit to fight the impacts of climate change on a local level with their ‘Conversations with Councillors’ project. 

The project saw Gedling Climate Change Group heading out with the aim to speak to representatives from each and every ward in Gedling to make sure our councillors are providing their own leadership in this climate crisis! Armed with the Climate and Nature Convention Report (created with the concerns and issues raised from attendees of their sold-out Climate and Nature Convention in November 2023) their intention is to ensure our councillors are gripping the problems we are facing, created by the climate and nature crisis, to ensure the climate is at the forefront of their decision-making and actions, and that they are doing everything they can in their own wards to tackle it. The meetings are also to make sure we are doing what we can as local residents to support them in this action.

After approaching councillors from all 19 wards over the last 6 months, the group have only had a small number of positive responses to meetings. 

Meetings have been held with Paul Feeney (Carlton Hill), Viv and Ron McCrossen (Woodthorpe), Rachael Ellis (Bestwood St Albans), Russell Whiting (Colwick), Catherine Pope (Carlton), Paul Wilkinson (Carlton) and Henry Wheeler (Coppice). Jenny Hollingsworth (Gedling Village and now Deputy Leader of Gedling Borough Council) and Lynda Pearson (Gedling Village) have also agreed to meet in the near future. 

The group are also in negotiations to meet with Michael Payne, MP for Gedling, and have now arranged regular meetings with the Senior Leadership Team at Gedling Borough Council in the coming year.  

The group has praised those who have engaged and the meetings that have been held, have been largely positive. Disappointingly though, this still leaves 13 out of the 19 wards where a meeting has not been arranged, a large number of those not even engaging with invitations. 

With many groups and organisations working tirelessly in Nottinghamshire to try and raise awareness and organise action to fight the climate and nature crisis, do some wards not see the planet as a priority?

We have so many beautiful green spaces, animal species and bodies of water in our local area, we need to give the gift of protecting them this December (and always!) 

The people of Gedling, and the rest of the world, deserve to have clean air, wonderful natural spaces, and a planet that is kept alive and allowed to thrive. 

If you want more information on Gedling Climate Change Group and their activities, you can contact them on gedlingccg@gmail.com, or follow them on social media:

Facebook: Gedling Climate Change Group

X: @gedlingccg