On Wednesday 26 February, a Reception was held in the House of Commons to launch the first ever education legislation to have been drafted by pupils and students. It was hosted by Nadia Whittome MP, at 24 the youngest serving MP and was attended by 53 MPs and 47 students aged 13 to 26, including three of YPTE's Young Trustees.
On Wednesday 26 February 2020, fifty students, including three of YPTE's Young Trustees will be entering parliament on a mission to engage MPs and Peers in the need to repurpose the education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis.
A new report, 'A future for the world's children?', has been published by a Commission that has been jointly appointed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the medical journal The Lancet.
At 1pm on 9 February 2020, Brazilian scientists from Marambio base on Seymour Island in the Weddell Sea recorded an air temperature of 20.75C. The reading still needs to be properly confirmed by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), but if it is, it will break the previous record of 19.8C which was recorded on Signy Island back in 1982.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has brought forward the target date to end sales of all new petrol and diesel cars from 2040 to 2035. The ban will now include hybrid vehicles as well, meaning currently that all new vehicles will have to be electric or hydrogen-powered after this date.
Yesterday at the 2020 World Economic Forum, held in Davos, Switzerland, US President Donald Trump addressed delegates with a speech which did its best to ignore climate change. In his view, "We must reject the perennial prophets of doom", while he called for a rejection of "predictions of the apocalypse." In his view, today's climate activists are "the heirs of yesterday's foolish fortune tellers".
Data provided by the UK Met Office, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the USA and the Copernicus Climate Change Service in Europe all agrees that the past five years have been the hottest since global temperature recording began in 1850. The average temperature for 2019 was around 1.1C above the average for 1850 to 1900.
More energy was produced in the UK from renewables than fossil fuels on 137 days during 2019. That makes it he UK's greenest year yet for energy production, but only just!
On Sunday afternoon, two weeks of talks at the UN COP25 climate conference in Madrid ended with a recognition of the need for much deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, but few concrete commitments made towards reductions.