MPs are debating the call for a National Emergency Briefing. On Monday 16 November at 4.30pm, MPs will debate Chris Packham’s petition calling for a live, government-led briefing to the nation on the climate and nature crisis. Over 130,000 people have signed the parliamentary petition, calling for the public to be given clear, trusted information about the risks we face and what we can do about them.
Now we need MPs to turn up and hear the case. Please contact your MP and ask them to attend the debate, whatever party they represent. This isn’t about party politics. It’s about ensuring everyone has the information they need to understand the challenges ahead.
You can contact your MP here: https://www.nebriefing.org/petition-debate. I’ve contacted mine, and my letter is below. Please also share to help spread the word.
Dear Rushanara Ali,
As you know, we are facing a collapse of food supplies, security and a livable climate within the lifetime of many of your constituents. This is a national, indeed global, emergency, and the UK must show leadership, for the sake of its own survival as well as that of the planet. I’m therefore writing as your constituent regarding the petition debate on Monday 16 November at 4:30pm about whether the government should hold a live emergency briefing to the nation on the climate and nature crisis.
The threat we face is far more grave than COVID was, yet is taken with a fraction of the seriousness by the political class. Perhaps this is because its biggest victims are younger generations and people in the Global South. Voters, on the other hand, are taking it increasingly seriously. For a start, the petition behind this debate has over 130,000 signatories.
What so many of us want to see is a briefing introduced by the Prime Minister and delivered by independent experts, so everyone gets clear, trusted information about the risks to our homes, jobs and communities, and what we can do about those risks. It is surely a government’s responsibility to inform the population when there is a crisis, and to lead on preparedness and adaptation. This is beyond party politics. This is an emergency.
I have been involved in campaigning on the environment since I was a teenager in the late 80s and early 90s, firstly because I followed the science and secondly because I was brought up in the Labour movement. I was taught the values of social justice and care for people and planet. It is distressing and incomprehensible to me that, even in Labour, so few politicians appear to understand that they cannot negotiate with physics, and so many are prepared to sacrifice our future in the name of what? The discredited economics of limitless growth? Career advancement? Political cowardice? But the evidence is overwhelming: seven out of nine critical planetary boundaries have been crossed. It could not be clearer. We must change our economy and lifestyles on our own terms, or catastrophe will do it for us.
Will you be remembered as one of a generation of politicians that ignored the evidence and warnings of experts, and led this country towards collapse? I am disappointed to see that you have not yet joined the Parliamentary Call nor yet signed the EDM. Please attend the debate, hear the case, and back the call for a briefing.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Burgess
