Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn will today visit Cheshire East, where the local council recently declared a climate emergency, to urge people and communities to follow suit and “come together to demand change and climate justice”.
In a call to action ahead of the visit, the Labour Leader warned that the climate emergency will not be dealt with “from above by people sitting in offices in Whitehall and Westminster alone”. The climate crisis demands a collective response because “individual action is not enough and the invisible hand of the market will not save us”.
This call for collective action comes after Labour forced Parliament to declare a climate emergency in May, with the Labour leadership determined to set off a wave of action from parliaments and government across the world, as well as local authorities across the United Kingdom.
The Conservatives lost 19 seats on Cheshire East Council in the local elections in May, losing control of the flagship council for the first time. Following Labour’s successful motion in Parliament to declare a climate emergency on 1st May, Cheshire East Council’s new Labour Leader, Councillor Sam Corcoran, declared an environment and climate emergency and committed the council to a target of being carbon neutral by 2025 at the Council’s first meeting since coming under Labour control.
During his visit to Cheshire, the Labour Leader will also meet councillors and members of the local community at a community garden, where he will discuss the environmental and health benefits of gardening and people growing their own food.
Speaking ahead of the visit, Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn MP said:
“I congratulate the newly-elected Labour leadership of Cheshire East Council for declaring a climate emergency and setting an example for other communities and councils to follow.
“We have no time to waste. The scale and severity of the climate emergency requires urgent action in every community across our country and across the world. We are living in a climate crisis that will spiral dangerously out of control unless we take rapid and dramatic action.
“Climate justice is about social justice. It is working class communities in inner-city areas that suffer the worst effects of air pollution. Around the world, it is the poorest people who are already paying a heavy price of this crisis while the super-rich and the big corporations, who are most responsible for emissions, can afford to look after themselves.
“Local government and local communities are absolutely essential to confronting the climate emergency. Action from above by people sitting in offices in Whitehall and Westminster alone will never deliver the change we need.
“But individual action is also not enough, and the invisible hand of the market will not save us. We need a collective response that empowers people. An emergency of this magnitude requires concerted and urgent action at every level to take on the polluters and secure our planet’s future.”
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