Ed Miliband : Hot Reaction

I mustn’t be too hard on the man, he’s just become a father. And he is most congenial, friendly and well-motivated in his heart-felt engagement with Climate Change.

But seriously, if he really wanted to engage the people in the room, he would have been more careful not to be so dismissive of the magician outside the front door who was trying to show everyone very theatrically that Carbon Trading doesn’t work.

Plus, he would have showed that after all this time in full view of the facts on Global Warming, that he understood that sooner or later Government policy must match the scientific requirements, instead of harping on about “the art of the possible”.

Here are a few more reactions :-

P : “The Developing Countries don’t want Carbon Trading. There’s this Financing Proposal coming out…”

P : “Ed didn’t react properly to the very strong critique of Carbon Trading from Friends of the Earth. Ed was not even challenged about whether there were any concerns about Carbon Trading and the Clean Development Mechanism. He dismissed the magician and dismissed the Developing World’s perspective when he made the joke “you’re taking up my Carbon space”. We’ve polluted the sky, leaving no room for Development !”

https://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefing_notes/dangerous_distraction.pdf
“Dangerous Distraction : Why offsetting is failing the climate and people: the evidence”

M: So how was Ed Miliband for you ?
J: Charming, ebullient and patronising. All the things I thought he would be.
M: So you weren’t disappointed, then.

When I explained to Paul Hilder, Campaign Director of Avaaz.org and co-founder of openDemocracy that I had no energy for campaigning for the Copenhagen Treaty as Ed Miliband is asking us to, because it was full of things I could not agree with, he said :-

“We’re not rubber-stamping Copenhagen !”

Andy Atkins : “[It’s no good Ed Miliband saying] do us a campaign and we’ll do what you want ! You were elected to lead. Lead ! You can change the political space in an instant ! We have to challenge them [the Government]. They’re being cowardly. There are votes to be lost. In history [you can see it was] sometimes [necessary to] take risks.”

Ken Livingstone in response to Andy Atkins : “Margaret Thatcher took risks every day…she had guts. She was mad. But she had guts.”

People seen at the conference included : Guy Shrubsole of Public Interest Research Centre pirc.info, Nicky Gavron of C40 Cities, Bryony Worthington of Sandbag and AMEE, Mark Dowd of “God is Green” Operation Noah, Franny Armstrong of the film Age of Stupid, (not the Age of Supine !), Leo Murray ex-of Plane Stupid now of Team Stupid, Climate Camp Jester Steve, Phil England of Climate Radio, Andy Atkins of Friends of the Earth, Sian Berry of the Green Party, Ken Livingstone formerly London Mayor, John Ackers of the Campaign against Climate Change, Tina Davy senior researcher for Colin Challen MP, Dr Keith Allott of World Wildlife Fund, Ben Branzel of MoveOn.org and now also of the new Barack Obama technology campaign team.