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Ed Miliband Event

Hosting Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband’s last public meeting before he made his way to Copenhagen was Manchester FoE’s most prestigious moment of 2009, writes Catherine.

Ed Miliband had run a series of public debates across the country throughout the year to raise awareness of the climate summit talks. Manchester was his last stop, on Tuesday 8 December, and, although we were thrilled to be asked, the task was also a little daunting. MFoE’s Dave Coleman took the bulk of the workload, managing to convince Manchester Council, the Department of Energy And Climate Change, the Co-operative and the venue, Manchester Central, to work together. Several grey hairs later and he had managed to pull off a superbly run evening.

Meanwhile, the group took the opportunity to develop and extend our local networks, inviting voluntary and public sector organisations from Manchester with an interest in climate change to hold stalls at the venue prior to the debate. Not only was this Ed’s last chance to gather the views of the nation on climate issues, the evening also saw Manchester City Council launch its own plan to tackle climate change, entitled Manchester: A Certain Future – Our Collective Action On Climate Change.

With between 400 and 500 people in attendance, the event commenced with roving repartee from Phil Korbel before moving to a panel discussion chaired by John Harris of the Guardian. After a brief introduction from the speakers – Mike Childs, FoE’s campaigns director, Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, and Len Wardle, Chair of the Co-operative – questions were taken from the floor. Questions covered everything from peak oil to the challenges of behavioural change, and Ed did his best to address all the issues raised. Mike Childs gave a passionate but reasoned critique of the challenges Friends of the Earth felt we faced going into the Copenhagen talks and, although he was generally supportive of the government’s efforts, he was not shy in pointing out where he felt they fell short.

Overall the evening was a success, with a cross-section of ages, a good mix of questions, and some proper banter across the table. It was just a pity that our wide-eyed expectations at that time were not reflected in the summit’s outcome…

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