Please do share your support for a Cooperative COP26 on social media to help spread the word?

The upcoming COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference is a chance for the world to unite in the fight against climate change – but that effort must have co-operation at its heart.
With COP26 being hosted in the UK, it is their Government's responsibility to set the tone with an ambitious, co-operative plan for tackling the climate emergency.

Right across the UK, cooperative movement says it is already hard at work tackling the climate emergency. There is a joint declaration by the UK's co-operatives pledging to take collective action and calling for a just transition where every business plays their part.

The UK cooperative party's members believe that a plan to tackle climate change should include:

1. Commit to achieving net zero by 2030

Setting bold targets for tackling the climate emergency and making that fight a main priority for the Government.

2. Enshring a Right to Clean Air into law

Air pollution now causes 40,000 early deaths at a cost of £20 billion each year according to the Royal College of Physicians. They believe urgent legislation in Parliaments is needed to create a legal right to clean air and to stop air pollution and protect our families' health.

3. Creating community-led energy for all

They believe every single community should have the opportunity to create and use their own energy. Governments should support community-led renewable energy sources, owned and controlled by the people who use it, and which is accessible and sustainable for everyone.

4. Sparking one million new green co-ops

Co-ops are already pioneering the future of green technology and the fight against climate change, from renewable energy co-ops to retrofitting co-ops. But we need to increase the scale of our ambition – by calling Governments to support the creation of new green co-operatives, which can help everyone own their own part in combatting the climate crisis.

5. Passing Wellbeing of Future Generations Acts

Wales has shown the way with a Welch Wellbeing of Future Generations act, which gives the Welsh Government an obligation to consider the impact its policies will have on the environment for the next generation ensuring people work together to leave a better, greener world behind.

6. Support international climate justice by maximising aid

The issue of climate change is too big to be tackled alone, so governments should lead and cooperate in the global fight against climate change by maintaining commitments to spending on international aid, so that developing countries can be supported in their transition to cleaner and greener economies.