St Mary’s has been responding to the Climate Crisis by working through our membership in Citizens UK to get politicians to take bold action.
In September 2019, people from St Mary’s organised a gathering at St Mary Aldermary, City of London, in a long-shot bid to get the climate on our Citizens’ Manifesto.
The Citizens’ Manifesto is important because it expresses the agreed upon goals of our London Citizens’ alliance – which includes hundreds of faith institutions, schools, colleges and community groups from across London. The Manifesto is also important because it will be presented to candidates for Mayor of London in a series of pre-meetings, as well as at our 6,000-person Mayoral Assembly at the Copperbox, Olympic Park, in early 2020.
However, in order to get the Climate Crisis on the Manifesto, we first had to turn out at least 50 people from four different London boroughs, with 10 different Citizens’ institutions represented. We surpassed those targets at our September meeting, and – from the people who attended that night – built on our momentum by creating a Climate Leadership Team to articulate what it was we wanted politicians – specifically the Mayor – to do.
We then had to take our ask – which, we decided, was to make London carbon-neutral by 2030, with our commitment to launching the largest listening campaign in Citizens’ history, one that included every borough in London – to a 20th November Delegates’ Assembly, which is when Citizens’ chapters would decide our three priorities for the Mayoral Assembly.
The issues chosen in the top three would be allowed to have representatives speak at the Mayoral Assembly, and also to put their specific issue to each of the candidates in what is called ‘pinning’, which is where we try and secure a promise or commitment from a politician in front of a large crowd and then work to ensure that that politician delivers.
We’re excited that on 20th November at the London Citizens’ Delegates Assembly, our goal of making London carbon-neutral by 2030 was chosen as one of the top three priorities – as voted on by Citizens’ members – for the 2020 Citizens’ Mayoral Assembly at the Copperbox in Olympic Park.
At the Copperbox, we’ll put our ask to each of the mayoral candidates and launch the biggest listening campaign in Citizens’ history. A huge congratulations to all the members of our Climate Leadership Team and to everyone from St Mary’s, the Parish of Walthamstow and our fellow Citizens’ institutions who voted for the Climate Crisis on 20th November.
A special thank you as well to Dan and Jen Copperwheat of Greenleaf Road Baptist Church in Walthamstow (fellow Citizens’ members) and their son Noah, age 6, who bravely shared with the hundreds of people at our Delegates’ Assembly how pollution in London has negatively impacted him
