A climate change festival will be running throughout Wandsworth starting today.
Wandsworth Council is holding the Together on Climate Change Festival 2021 from 8-13 November, to coincide with COP26 in Glasgow.
There will be a mixture of exciting virtual and in-person events throughout the week with residents, community groups and businesses across the borough taking part in the festival.
Wandsworth Council Climate Change Lead, Andrew Hagger, 41, said: “Climate change is a massive issue that is affecting and is going to affect us all, and we all need to come together to take action on it.
“It’s not just one person, or one group or one organisation that can do it.
“It’s got to be all of us together and so that’s why we want people to come together to talk about it, find out more about what they can do, and what other people are doing as well to be inspired to take action.
“We wanted to do something to show the work we are doing as a council while also trying to galvanise action in the community and spreading knowledge, tips and information about what’s going on in the borough.”
Monday’s line up includes an event about how cargo bikes can be used instead of petrol or diesel vans by businesses in Wandsworth, with the council offering them to interested businesses.
Hagger also drew attention to Tuesday’s big event; Wandsworth Schools Climate Change Day, in which 30 primary and secondary schools across the borough will be participating.
Students will be getting involved in climate-focused activities and lessons with community groups that are active on climate change, working with them during the sessions.
The main event of the week is Saturday’s all-day event at Battersea Arts Centre, starting at 11am and finishing at 5pm.
Hagger encouraged the public to get involved and said: “We want as many people to come along as possible to this event on Saturday, there’ll be lots of different activities and things that that people can get involved in.
“We’ll have activities for children and it is family friendly.”
There will also be a roundtable discussion where listeners can find out about different aspects of climate change and share their thoughts on what they would like to see happening in their borough.
Hagger added: “We hope we can see if there’s actions that we can take as a council and then build on that, build some momentum and ideas around climate change and what we can do.”
On the main stage, a carbon literacy taster session will be run by Hagger himself, in addition to acts performing songs about climate change and nature.
Community groups and residents will have stalls, and will talk to the public about the work they’re doing surrounding climate change.
Council teams will be present to talk about the work Wandsworth Council is doing itself to tackle climate issues.
Hagger also responded to Extinction Rebellion Wandsworth’s half-term climate change report which implied that Wandsworth Council is not doing enough to protect its environment or its people.
He said: “We’re doing an awful lot, we’ve set out some pretty ambitious plans. You can’t solve climate change instantly but we’re taking a lot of action around it.
“This is another step in our journey towards doing that. It would be brilliant if the council could solve climate change on its own, it would just be a matter of putting enough money towards it and then solving it, but that’s not the case.
“We need governments, we need businesses, we need people, we need us as a council.
“Everybody has to come together to take action on it.”
To find out more about the Together on Climate Change Festival 2021, you can visit the website here.
