Today's the day! The heat has relented and Reform finally have their chance to persuade King's Lynn and West Norfolk' Council to turn their back on climate action I'll be live-tweeting from the debate
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I'm here as a scientist, terrified resident and member of Extinction Rebellion There are over 20 of us here, many of whom have never joined us before This motion is not popular!
For context, the town hall in which we sit is at sea level bsky.app
This is King's Lynn, where Reform want to end action on climate Areas in red are *already* below the annual flood level The black dot is the town hall where they'll debate the motion (once the extreme heat allows them to)
For further context, Reform UK get most of their funding from fossil fuel companies
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The heatwave has passed but it's still pretty hot in here
OK I might have misled you about the live-tweeting I'm not a journalist and it turns out I can't listen and post at the same time Details to follow but headline: Reform LOST! Reform's Cllr Austen Moore spoke first to propose his motion. He said - West Norfolk's emissions are globally insignificant - net zero is an impossible financial burden for households - we should focus on resilience instead The env. portfolio holder responded that the council has brought in £17 million in external climate funding since making its climate emergency declaration in 2021 And he shared an astonishing statistic: The cost to residents of West Norfolk Borough Council's climate policies is £3.38/household/yr 12 councillors then took turns to speak, and 11 of them spoke passionately against the motion They included Conservative, Labour & Lib Dem cllrs, and they all spoke from a different angle & gave different arguments The diversity of rationales was striking, but they united in their conclusions Here are a few of my favourite arguments/quotes, paraphrased ‘we must not support this motion because it is full of falsehoods. As a council, we cannot agree that false things are true’ ‘the cost of living crisis faced by households is not caused by net zero but by global events and gas prices’ ‘it’s absurd to say that net zero is hurting the poorest in West Norfolk when our retrofitting policies are explicitly targeted to the most vulnerable households’ ‘retaining the declaration reassures the community that we recognise the seriousness of the situation and that we are responding’ 'I don't know what's more disappointing - that the cllr isn't aware of the many policies & services we have in place to address climate and support vulnerable people, or that he hasn't bothered to find out' ‘net zero is expensive but flooded homes are expensive too’ ‘this is not what a proper motion to council looks like. It is a ridiculous political stunt’ ‘this isn’t a motion, it’s political dogma dressed up as concern for residents. It’s an insult to our officers out there on the front lines doing the work’ ‘I was taught that if you make a mess you clean it up’ ‘Like it or not we are community leaders and we have a responsibility to show leadership’ ‘Do we believe the thousands of climate scientists, or Trump, Farage and Cllr Moore?’ ‘Reform are the political wing of the fossil fuel industry’ In the end, Reform's motion was voted down by 37-7, with 3 abstentions. And 5 of the 'for' votes were Reform councillors (I think) Hooray! 🥳 But beyond the result, two things in particular massively heartened me 1) the breadth and depth of support for climate policies from cllrs across parties, & 2) the influence that residents can have on what goes on in their local government I was struck by how well informed about climate and energy so many of our cllrs were, but I don't that's because West Norfolk struck lucky I think it's because lots of us wrote to them & shared relevant information It was gratifying to hear councillors share stats from articles I'd sent them, and a welcome reminder that doing this stuff is worthwhile I need to chill out now