BCCF believes that we all have to work together to prevent or mitigate the dangers which manmade climate change poses to all life on this planet, particularly in the form of flooding, heatwaves, soil erosion, forest fires, desertification, dangerous storms, crop failures, mass extinctions.
We believe that the steps necessary to achieve this will occasion and accompany enormous changes in lifestyle, particularly in the West, which has contributed most to creating this threat. We do not believe that the steps which have to be taken are necessary only to maintain our current standards of living. Many of these standards are, in themselves, unsustainable.
We believe that a major effort must be made to reduce pollution and our output of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, particularly CO2 and methane so that we have binding global targets to limit temperature rises to no more than 1.5 degrees, or 2 degrees (of pre-industrial levels) at the very most. This necessitates leaving 80% of remaining fossil fuels in the ground.
This effort must be a matter of the utmost urgency. We support the devotion of large public and private resources to the realisation of this, in order to avoid the expenditure of even greater resources later. This is why individual efforts, while important, will be insufficient without strong political leadership and concerted action by big business, governments, the United Nations and all wealthy organisations, the only ones with the power to effect the necessary changes on the scale needed. The effects of climate change will spare nobody.
Action now on breaking our dependence on fossil fuels will allow us to prevent further climate chaos. The longer we wait to take action, the more we lose control of the situation and the greater the damaging effects on us all.
Our focus must be firmly on both extensive energy efficiency efforts and on the promotion of wide scale clean, renewable energy – where appropriate solar, offshore and onshore wind, hydro, tidal and biomass. A world in which energy and other resources have appeared plentiful, unlimited and relatively cheap is ending. We are moving from a fossil fuel dependent civilization to a vastly different one.
We already have the resources to be zero carbon but there are currently major obstacles to this happening. BBCF believe that climate change is the single biggest threat to humanity and to planet earth and that there is a moral imperative to do all that we can, and as soon as we can.
We also believe that tackling climate change NOW has multiple benefits, for example:
economic – creating new skills and jobs in renewable energy, investment in public transport, sustainable building, retrofitting of insulation and renewable energy to existing homes.
climate justice – Creating stronger, fairer communities that work together to face the challenges. Currently the poorest are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and have the least resources to try to mitigate the effects. Community ownership of energy offers great opportunities.
health – tackling air pollution, reducing our dependence on cars, making our towns and cities more pleasant to live and move around.
Bedfordshire Climate Change Forum 