Local group meeting with the Minister for Transport.

Brilliant news coming to us from Meath. The Meath Climate Change group have been collecting signed postcards calling for a Minister Dempsey is presented with signed postcard by a member of Meath Climate Change Groupstrong climate law in and around Navan for a few months. Earlier this month they met with their local TD Noel Dempsey. As minister for Transport, Mr Dempsey is a key figure in the Governments, attempt to tackle climate change. He sits on the important Cabinet sub-commitee on climate change.

The local climate change group met with him to hand over the postcards that they had collected and to discuss the coming climate law with him. The group felt that they had a postive meeting with him, and he spent more time talking to them than the twenty minutes that he had originally said he had for the meeting. They expressed the urgency that they felt about climate change and the need for the climate law to be passed as soon as possible, preferably by summer. Another point that the group brought up was the importance of including all emissions in the law, in particular emissions from the ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme). They also expressed their desire for the reduction targets to mean domestic action not offsetting. Offsetting is a cop-out way of saying you have reduced your emissions by paying someone else to reduce their emissions.

The minister listened to their concerns and seemed very engaged and knowledgable on climate change. He told them that all the ministers in government agree in theory on the importance of tackling climate change, but that they are reluctanct to accept any responsibilty in thier own departments. This shows that we need to get some postcards to some of the other ministers and tell them that climate change is important to real people!

If you would be interested in collecting some postcards in your area and giving them to your local TD please get in touch with us. We'd really love to hear from you. We can give you lots of support from the office, including an action pack and giving you a workshop on how to lobby your TD. Its really important that politicians hear from people in their local area, its one of the only things that get them to actually do anything! So give us a call on 01 639 4652 or drop an email to molly@foe.ie, and be part of this important campaign.

Once again massive well done to Claire and James and everyone in Meath who made this meeting happen.