Huge congratulations to Thornbury’s Zoe Bonnett, who started the recent schoolchildren’s climate strike in Bristol, one of many such events across the UK and around the world.
Many regard climate change as the biggest challenge of our time. It can seem daunting, but the good news is the clean energy revolution is well underway.
You don’t really notice it when you switch on a light, but the UK now has more renewable energy generation capacity than fossil fuel capacity.
Energy from solar and wind is now cheaper than fossil fuels. And there are rapid developments in energy efficiency, energy storage, smart integrated technologies, and the decarbonisation of transport and heat.
But we need to be doing all this much faster. It will cost money, and that’s available – from institutional investors, the private sector, the public sector and the community sector.
But much of it is currently in the wrong place. The Avon Pension Fund, for example, has an estimated £105million invested in fracking. Madness.
Communities across the UK are now declaring a climate emergency. Bristol councillors recently backed an ambitious new pledge for the city to become carbon neutral by 2030. And there are calls for North Somerset and BANES to do the same.
If we really care about our young people’s future, we need the same in South Gloucestershire too.
Andy O’Brien
Thornbury
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