We must all do our bit in this fight

THE council recently hosted the Model Climate Conference & Local Action Summit run by the charity Interclimate Network.

It sounds quite a mouthful but was an event for local secondary schools where all the ‘delegates’ were pupils and their main job was to represent the views of different nations who are attending the actual UN Climate Conference in Katowice Poland from December 2.

A total of 15 nations, from Fiji to Russia, were selected to cover the differing attitudes to and problems caused by climate change.

Each school was given a number of countries to represent with a team of two or three for each one. Each nation laid out their current position and work being done to tackle climate change.

There was then a series of negotiating sessions between nations.

As an observer at the event I found the knowledge about the different countries and their issues was impressive, as was the enthusiasm of the teams to negotiate between countries and tackle the problems involved.

The latest special report to the UN, which brought together findings of hundreds of trusted scientists across the world, shows there is unprecedented scientific consensus globally: that climate change is real and that human interference is driving the speed of change.

Clearly we aren’t all going to be negotiating at UN Conferences, but the Local Action Summit part of the event gave to the chance for local experts to show what people can do to help in their own area.

While the council itself is involved in many projects to reduce climate change it is important we all play a part in our local communities.

Having seen the enthusiasm of the young people involved this week I am confident they will get stuck in to help provide leadership in their schools and wider communities.