History and Achievements

Marlborough Climate Pledge is a voluntary group of local people, convinced that if we work together we will make a difference to climate change.  The group was established in 2005-06 when five practical and hopeful women in the town decided that climate change needed practical and political action taking place to stop it, not just talking. The idea of The Climate Pledge was born.

To gather support for the project, Former Environment Minister Michael Meacher, MP, spoke to a packed crowd at Marlborough Town Hall in May, 2006.  Meacher, who spoke passionately on the challenges we now face,  said he was bowled over by the size of the audience and its commitment to action.  Pledges and new ideas are still coming in and we provide a range of activites and events to inspire practical action for climate change.

Achievements:
To focus on the bigger picture, we have helped bring about the Climate Change Bill, supporting the  Big Ask Campaign, spearheaded by Friends of the Earth. 

"People often say: Does anything change politics? Well here it has." Nick Robinson BBC Political Editor.

"I pay tribute to the scientists who detected the problem, the campaigners who fought to bring it to public attention, the green movement that mobilised for change, and above all, the members of the public who wrote to us in record numbers, asking for a Bill that met the scale of the challenge." Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

The law commits the UK to cutting its emissions by 80% by 2050, it sets up a process which will make sure the Government delivers on these long term targets and it covers all of the UKs greenhouse gas emissions, including the UKs share of emissions from international aviation and shipping.

Locally, our first year's pledge feedback process shows that MCP’s first pledge feedback process of 100 households resulted in savings of 125 tonnes (at a conservative estimate) of C02; i.e. 1.25 tonnes per household.

This was calculated through our own research linking our local pledges to national figures for estimating savings (using figures from the Energy Savings Trust, DEFRA (2007), the Carbon Trust and reputable NGOs). Fergus Rolfe of CRed (Carbon Reduction programme based at the University of East Anglia) reviewed our figures for accuracy and appropriateness, and in general suggested that what we have done thus far is in line with what he would
expect.

MCP was also invited by Defra to participate in a Consultation to produce a 'Best Practice Guide to Designing and Operating Climate Change Pledge Schemes’ (June 2008)