• THE past 12 months saw climate change surge – rightly, and belatedly – to the top of the national and international agenda.

Depressingly, at a time when we need to ramp our global response up to levels hitherto unseen, we are lumbered with world leaders from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who is allow­ing the lungs of the world to burn, to Donald Trump, who airily dismisses “prophets of doom”, even as news emerges of the melting of the Thwaites glacier – the most important on the planet.

Faced with all this, it is easy to feel helpless. But as I said at the climate rally held outside Camden Council in September, we must be the ones to lead regardless. This means starting at the grassroots.

In 2010, Camden Labour fulfilled its manifesto pledge for a cabinet member for sustainability. The 10-year plan we agreed has overseen nearly a 40 per cent fall in carbon emissions.

Long-term ambition matters. From creating the low-carbon Somers Town Energy centre, to holding the country’s first Citizens’ Assembly on the climate crisis last year, we have always sought to rise to this challenge.

Now, we need your help too, to let us know your ideas and what we can do in the borough to help slow the pace of global overheating.

Camden’s draft Climate Action Plan asks us all to look at the broad areas of People, Places, Buildings, and Organisations and where in these domains we can reduce carbon. These will help us deliver on the 17 recommendations made by the Citizens’ Assembly and advance us towards a zero-carbon future.

Please go to camden.gov.uk/climateplan, share your thoughts, and support us to go as far as we can on carbon reduction, as quickly as we can.

CLLR ADAM HARRISON
Cabinet member for a sustainable Camden