Our Green Party members did some of the key local organising for Climate Friday. Three rallies were organised, one each in Deal, Dover and Sandwich for Bonfire night, Friday 5th November.
In Deal around 50 people turned out at Deal Station. Poems were read, there was a ‘die-in’ and a pop-up performance by the synchronised Green Barrows troup of clean-up pilots.
Sarah Gleave, Dover and Deal Green Party, said “We’ve seen bonfires of forest fires, and floods, worldwide, caused by climate crisis; Chatham House risk assessment of Sept 2021 shows we are on course to miss the 1.5 degrees of warming because a lack of international cooperation has us on course for 2.7 degrees. We’ve seen the predicted coastal changes this would bring to our Kent doorsteps. We were delighted to renew friendships and to make new contacts so that we can work to persuade DDC to do much much more to protect our woodland, wetland grassland carbon sinks and our food-producing fields.”
Liz Hayes of Transition Town Dover said, “In Pencester we met many climate-concerned resident, friends old and new. Using songs and banners and we shared our determination to call for climate justice; We say, NO COP26, cop-out. We are doing what we can as individuals, but we need those with economic and government power to take much more real, honest action. DDC should bring forward the target date for a zero carbon whole district; 2050 is decades too late.”
Simon Dundas of Sandwich Environmental Conservation Group, “At Sandwich station we met many people of all backgrounds who really want to make a difference. Halving rail fares could make a dramatic reduction to Kent’s carbon footprint. More people at last are waking up to the critical tipping points we are reaching. This is affecting millions across the world and thousands here in Kent also where we’ve seen the maps of all the areas that will be underwater by 2050 if serious action isn’t taken by the powerful.”
Sharon Danby of East Kent Climate Action and Green Barrows said, “A real, honest, just transition would create well-paid jobs making homes, old and new, zero-carbon and cosy, lifting millions out of fuel-poverty. It would create jobs in community-owned renewables, in local, healthy food production and in better, cheaper public transport.”
Family-friendly events were also held in other towns across Kent, in Chatham, Faversham, Canterbury, Sevenoaks, Folkestone and elsewhere, coordinated by Kent Climate Action Coalition (linked to COP26 Coalition).
Nationally, COP26 Coalition Climate Justice March in London on Sat 6th brought out many from across Kent including a number of our members and supporters, and a couple managed to get to Glasgow too. These demonstrations included youth, faith, trade union, environmental and many other groups. A coach was paid for by Unite Community Kent and Medway Unison used by demonstrators from Ramsgate, Dover, Canterbury and Rochester who returned home on Saturday uplifted and with renewed determination to pester the powerful to protect Kent’s coast line from rising sea levels.
Kent Climate Action Coalition was born 31 Aug 2021.
Website : kentclimateactioncoalition.org.ukEmail: info@kentclimateactioncoalition.org.uk
Facebook: facebook.com/Kent-Climate-Action-Coalition-105091551956693,
Twitter: @kent_coalition
Instagram: instagram.com/kentclimateactioncoalition.
National COP26 Coalition : https://cop26coalition.org/