Climate Week in Bournemouth and Poole could have been the first step to raising ‘Green Awareness’ but not many people came along, and more work is needed to reduce the large carbon footprint in the region.
Climate Week, which was set up last week by Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils, was supposed to invite people to combat climate change by making simple sustainable life choices, but not many people came along to take part in the events and the carbon footprint remains high.
During the week, several events took place each day, including Watch your Waste on Monday, which invited people to recycle and reduce waste, Travel Together, which promoted car sharing as a carbon reduction initiative, and Woolly Pully, the target being to show how wearing a jumper may reduce heating.
Climate week is a little step and every little step can be crucial but we need to understand that the key message is we need to do this for life not just for one week.
Theresa McManus, Coordinator of Community Garden, said: “Today we have just volunteers from Community Garden here. I guess maybe this is not the right period to arrange the Climate Week, the initiative is positive and commendable but with bad weather people are not willing to go out and participate.”
Angela Pooley, Coordinator of East Dorset Friends of Earth, said: “Climate week raises awareness but it won’t make the difference unless people and Councils are prepared to learn from it and put in practice its aim”.
Bournemouth Councillor David Smith, Cabinet Member, said: “We managed to involve many companies and employers to participate to the week and we’re trying to invite people who work in the town as much as we can to reduce their carbon emissions. We want to reduce our carbon of 34% into the Council and we’re working hard on that.”
“On a national scale maybe petrol’s price raising and gas bills raising could be an effective solution to carbon emission because people would consume less,” he added.
The Carbon Trust estimates that UK local authorities spend £750 million a year on energy, and are one of the largest single sources of emissions, with over 25 million tonnes of CO2. Carbon emission in Bournemouth are currently 5.7 tonnes per capita and Bournemouth Borough Council aims to put in action a series of initiatives as part of the Council’s Carbon Management Plan.
Cllr Smith said: “People would just need to take care of little things like warmer clothes and turning off computers and TVs standby switches to consume less energy, but it’s not easy to involve people to do it.”
Mrs McManus said:”Climate week is a little step and every little step can be crucial but we need to understand that the key message is we need to do this for life not just for one week.”
Main image from Climate Week Facebook.
