Oxfam/CRAG "Westminster Wednesday" report & discussion

this post split off from the Oxfam Carbon Competition thread – where we discussed what to say on the day. david.

Dear All,

Apologies for the delay in this post. It was such an amazing rollercoaster of a day and has taken some digesting. Many thanks to everyone who helped in the preparation for the day – you really helped us “raise our game”. I’ve * tried * to be brief and readable:

Good things about the day:

There wasn’t even the tiniest smidgeon of doubt about the science – we simply didn’t discuss this issue. The starting point in Westminster was that climate change is a given.

2 of the 3 knew their carbon footprints [Hilary Benn reported 6.6 tonnes, Peter Ainsworth 18 tonnes in a household of five; Steve Webb didn’t know – he said he’d done it a couple of years ago but not since. Even better, Peter Ainsworth said he didn’t fly]

Both Steve Webb and Peter Ainsworth expressed interest in some form of carbon trading – Peter Ainsworth at the macro-economic level “we need to have a market for carbon” and Steve Webb in the form of PCTs “how do we deal with a little old lady who gets to the middle of winter and finds she’s run out of carbon credits because she didn’t understand how the system works?”. This latter is particularly exciting news for CRAGs.

All of the 3 [and the other members of the LibDem environment sub-committee] saw public opinion as constraining their ability to act, wanted to know how to mobilise public opinion, and were very interested to hear about CRAGs and what they were doing.

All 3 wanted to know how we’d got our footprints so low, and were interested in the sorts of practical challenges we faced with this; Hilary Benn expressed frustration at the fact that even though loft insulation saves you money, people won’t do it. “How can we get people to do this?” He was also nicely shocked at the high level of service on mainland European trains over Christmas [sleeper trains on 25 December, ticket offices open at 7am on 26 December] – I didn’t need to point out that in the UK trains ground to an unplanned halt at this time, he got the message.

We ourselves were diverse representatives, both of CRAGs and of climate change activism: John did his 20 years hard-core green living thing [everyone laughed at his joke about composting toilets], I did my thing about social proof theorem and social change and mentioned the need for retro-fitting and Kat was the total star who’d found the time to read the Climate Change Bill and made excellent points about the need to include all grennhouse gases in the bill, and aviation and shipping, and explained the benefits of sustainable living. The Oxfam team were really impressed with us – rightly so!

Sitting in on the LibDem Environment Committee was absolutely fascinating – we had more time to talk and listen, and we got to hear what negotiations they were having with various groups, what sorts of amendments to acts they were working on, as well as having more time to talk about ourselves and our low carbon lives, and learn about theirs. [One of the LibDem MPs for instance, was delighted that his children found the train journey to Orkney the most exciting part of their holiday there, and hadn’t missed the plane at all – much to the surprise of the adults…] I can’t say more about that meeting really – we agreed to keep the contents of that meeting confidential.

Media interest in us – I’ve done an interview with the South London Press, and there’s now going to be an interview of Peckham CRAGgers following on from that. Several local councillors have also sent good wishes and one’s asked for our views on microgeneration and local planning, so it’s given CRAGs a stamp of authority and effectiveness…

Frustrating things about the day:

I felt that none of the 3 really got the need for * radical action, now *. Hilary Benn probably expressed the most frustration – but it wasn’t clear to me whether this was because he understood the urgency of the situation or has the responsibility to take action [or a bit of both].

Neither Hilary Benn nor Steve Webb gave any answer to what they were doing to reduce their personal greenhouse gas emissions – and Peter Ainsworth said “When my old lightbulbs go, I replace them with energy efficient ones”! We were all pretty stumped at that – constrained by social convention of not being able to say “What???!!!”. Hilary Benn suggested that we ask our MPs individually [a fob off?]

Peter Ainsworth may have sounded very green, but we didn’t pick him up on the fact that while the Tories’ green report from Michael Meacher and Zac Goldsmith made some fab points, John Redwood and other senior Tories dismissed it. Even worse, he was keen that Kingsnorth should be a trial for carbon-capture and storage.

Hilary Benn seemed lacking in leadership – for instance, we talked about loft insulation, and in response to his question “What can we do to get people install loft insulation?”, I suggested legislation. I was taken aback by the speed and negative tone of his reply “And what would be the sanction?”. Well, we’ve recently had new laws about smoking. We tried everything else with that issue, and in the end, most people recognise that we need tough action and legislation against smoking – so why not for other patently seriously dangerous forms of behaviour? I got a strong sense from him that we have to wait to persuade everyone before introducing the changes that are needed. Felt like a classic New Labour failure of vision.

Given that the LibDems were the party we spent most time with, and were able to observe in most detail, it’s difficult to make valid comparisons – but for my money, they seemed the group most engaged with what needs to be done [e.g. retrofitting as a whole not just loft-insulation] rather than what is easiest to do.

All 3 seemed to have little belief in their role as cultural leaders – when I asked if they would publicise their footprint on their websites, there was a general feeling of “Why? What good would that do? No-one listens to us anyway…”. Well, it depends what sort of an MP you are…

The limited amount of time we had was frustrating – we’d just get started and it would be time to stop…

Police manner outside the “mother of parliaments” when we got on our t-shirts and got out our banner “You’re NOT DOING THAT HERE!” opposite the anti-Iraq war demo site. Oh, I forgot about that…

And finally, despite the Palace of Westminster’s considerable pomp and grandeur, Prime Minister’s Question Time is absolutely no way to run a country/chimp’s tea party/performance art installation [delete as appropriate]

Impact?

Did we have any impact or have we just engaged in ego-massaging? We certainly had a big impact at Oxfam – they want to have a link to an Oxfam Activist CRAG [several members waiting already] on the forum which they would advertise in their “Activist News”. This is a really fantastic idea, I’m just not sure how it would work technically. Any comments David B, John Ackers?

For me, at the end of the day I felt amazed and really inspired, for several reasons. Taking part in the Westminster process was incredible – a huge thank you to Oxfam for organising this. The recognition that economic structures need to change to include greenhouse gases, and the interest in different forms of carbon trading was encouraging. But for me, most of all, learning that the perceived public opinion is holding MPs back emphasises the key part CRAGs and other grassroots groups have. In turn, the MPs’ failure to demonstrate urgency of radical action reinforces the need for that grassroots action.

So, come on us CRAGs!!!

Best wishes

Anna