We’re pleased to confirm that the next Members monthly meeting has been confirmed for Tuesday October 19 – and will take place at the Seymour Pavilion at Seymour Field in Ingatestone, starting at 7.30pm.
Also hybrid online via Zoom for those unable to attend in person on the night, it will be a joint meeting with Ingatestone & Fryerning Parish Council Climate Emergency Working Group. Sign-up details will follow in due course.
The major items on the agenda are likely to revolve around Brentwood Climate Action activity during COP26 – the United Nations climate conference, which is being hosted by the UK in Scotland from October 31 – November 12.
COP stands for Conference of the Parties, and this 26th summit will be attended by the countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change back in 1994.
There’s a great opportunity for the climate movement to come together around COP26, demand justice for those most affected by the crisis and hold leaders at all levels to account – both on a global scale, but relating it to a local level here in the Brentwood area too.
The key date potentially for us is Saturday November 6 on the middle weekend of the COP, where there is a designated Global Day of Action. And the latest Brentwood Climate Action steering group meeting on Wednesday October 6 discussed what we might do on that day to raise awareness of the issues involved, and of our group at the same time.
The main aim of that Day of Action is to unite climate activists and groups around a common goal: demanding governments and corporations limit global temperatures to 1.5°C and deliver real and just solutions to the climate crisis – in line with the Paris Climate Agreement from 2015.
So we are determined to have a presence on the day, allowing us to provide information to the public about COP26, the climate emergency, how it affects us locally, and raise awareness of what we are up to in Brentwood Climate Action.
Also during the second week of COP26 we are proposing to run a Sixth Form Conference on Thursday November 11 at the Anglo European School in Ingatestone. Full details of this are still being discussed, but it will be open to sixth formers from all of the Borough’s secondary schools, feature several speakers, and a host activities for attending pupils to undertake – as a start of an ongoing commitment to cross-school collaboration and to climate action locally.
Both this and the COP26 Global Day of Action presence will no doubt require a lot of input and effort from Brentwood Climate Action members to facilitate and run on the day, and so this will form the focus of our discussion at the October 19 meeting.
We’ll provide further updates and calls for Member involvement as required during the coming weeks!
As a date further ahead for your diary, the November meeting of Brentwood Climate Action members has been scheduled for Tuesday 23, also starting at 7.30pm. The venue will be confirmed in due course.