POLITICIAN’S PLEA ON PLASTIC
AMP has described how an “unforgettable” visit to the Arctic allowed her to see for herself the impact of plastic on the environment.
Anna McMorrin, the MP for Cardiff North, and colleagues from the Commons Environmental Audit Committee investigated how micro-plastic contamination is harming marine life.
They saw first-hand the affects of climate change and plastic pollution on the Arctic Circle.
The trip to the Arctic Circle as part of their inquiry into whether the UK should be doing more to help this vulnerable region.
The Labour MP is calling for companies which produce plastic to have to pay for their disposal in her Producer Pays Bill.
The backbencher described her trip to the frozen north as an “amazing experience” and one she would “never forget”.
The 46 year old said she was struck by how the people living in the Arctic felt so connected to the environment and the wildlife there.
The trip began in Tromsø where they met with researchers and scientists from the Norwegian Polar institute who told them about how climate change is affecting the Arctic and how the temperatures of the oceans are changing.
Their research on climate change and plastic pollution will allow the committee to come up with recommendations for ministers.
They began in Tromso, the gateway to the Arctic, and met with researchers, scientists and the Norweigan Polar institute before moving further north to Svalbard - an archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole.
There they spoke to the Governor of Svalbard and the Arctic Council.
Ms McMorrin told the Mirror: “We talked to them about the impacts of climate change that are really being felt, the melting, the warming of the ice, the changing weather systems, the warmer, wetter, wilder winters.
The committee members were able to see the polar bears and other animals being impacted by the rising sea temperatures.
Jenny Maddalena, a glaciologist from Bristol University, explained to them how the glaciers were eroding because of the rise in sea temperatures and showed how one glacier had been pushed back so far it was no longer an ocean glacier but a land glacier.
But for Ms McMorrin the trip wasn’t just important because of her work to tackle climate change, but also because it mirrored an expedition taken by her late father almost six decades ago.
He died last October aged 79 – but she is keeping his memory alive with her fact-finding mission at the top of the world.
“My trip pales into insignificance compared to his, but it will be really interesting to get even the tiniest little glimpse of the kind of environment that my father was in nearly 60 years ago,” she said.
Her trip comes 55 years after her father Ian, who lived near Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, was on the British Antarctic Survey.
“I was always really proud of him for having done it, because it’s not everyone’s dad who has been to the Antarctic.
“Growing up, I remember his many stories of life in that vast, beautiful, untouched landscape and how the natural world shaped him.
“His passion for the environment and his determination to change things has stayed with me.”
Her father’s pioneering work in the early 1960s included looking at the difference in weather patterns and ice.
His contribution to research was immortalised in the naming of the McMorrin Glacier.
She said of the committee’s inquiry: “It is unthinkable that our actions today are threatening those previously untouched landscapes in Antarctica and the Arctic, both of which are showing signs of climate change and plastic microbead contamination,” she said.
“That is why I am so passionate about this EAC inquiry; having an opportunity to speak to the people who see the changing environment seeing day in, day out is invaluable.”