"Last minute panic"

I received an email this morning from Friends of the Earth, which shows that none of the main parties in Exeter have signed the FOE climate pledge.

Hundreds of MPs nationally are serious about the environment - see if your prospective candidate is one of them here:

http://election.foe.co.uk/FinalTally

Of course, I emailed each of the candidates again using FOE's online form: http://election.foe.co.uk/FollowUp - each candidate has receive an email titles "Last minute panic" asking why they have not signed this important pledge.

The Green Party candidate has signed the pledge.

Here are the messages I've sent to the other candidates...

Conservative: I received an email this morning from Friends of the Earth -- only 4 conservative candidates nationally have signed the FOE climate pledge - compared to 109 Labour, and 211 Liberal democrats. Please drop me a quick email explaining this and why you have chosen not to sign the pledge as climate is a very important issue for me.

Labour: I received an email this morning from Friends of the Earth -- and discovered that you have not signed the climate pledge - only 109 Labour candidates have signed the pledge nationally compared to 211 Liberal democrats (twice as many!). Please drop me a quick email explaining this and why you have chosen not to sign the pledge as climate is a very important issue for me.

Liberal democrat: I received an email this morning from Friends of the Earth -- and discovered that you have not signed the climate pledge - Please drop me a quick email explaining why you do not support FOE's pledge when many other Liberal democrats nationally have committed their support. I see that the Green party candidate for Exeter has committed to this very important pledge.

I wonder if I will get any responses this close to the election - it will also be very interesting to see if any of the candidates respond after the results are known.


Note: They can sign up to the pledges here

http://election.foe.co.uk/SignThePledge

I PLEDGE TO SUPPORT

* Policy 1: A local carbon budget for every local authority: that caps CO2 in the local area in line with the scientific demands for emissions cuts and local circumstances; and enough money and technical support to enable councils to do their bit to tackle climate change.

* Policy 2: Sufficient investment in switching to a low carbon economy to: achieve a reduction in UK greenhouse gas emission of 42 per cent by 2020; create jobs and boost the recovery; and eliminate fuel poverty.

* Policy 3: An international deal on cutting emissions where those responsible make the deepest cuts first, and developing countries are supported to grow in a low carbon way.

* Policy 4: A new law which will tackle the major greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation caused by the UK’s dependence on imported feeds for livestock - and which will support better UK farming and domestic feed production.


-- I removed comments as I'm getting a lot of junk, but if in the unlikely event you would like to comment then just email me!