- Thousands of events expected across the UK during Great Big Green Week in September to celebrate communities taking action on climate change and nature loss
- New poll calls for urgent political action on climate change ahead of COP26, with more than two-thirds of the British public saying the Government should be doing more to combat climate change
- Supported by The British Library, Ben & Jerry’s, O2, Manchester United Foundation, and a number of celebrities, including actor and presenter Cel Spellman
In the year that the UK hosts the UN Climate Summit, COP26, the first Great Big Green Week (18 – 26 September 2021) will see events up and down the UK. Communities will come together to celebrate action on climate change and call for greater political ambition to protect people, nature and the planet. The Great Big Green Week will bring people together to set the stage for the most ambitious climate summit ever.
Thousands of people have already signed up to get involved in hundreds of events; nearly 800 events have already been pledged to celebrate how communities are taking action to tackle climate change and nature loss. The Climate Coalition has provided £100,000 of seed funding to events and festivals led by local community groups. Community events such as concerts, church and mosque activities, litter picks, street art and local festivals will take place alongside activities such as climate cabarets led by Ben & Jerry’s, Manchester United Foundation, Sustainable Restaurants Association, The British Library, O2, The Poetry School, The Nest Collective and The Philharmonia. Great Big Green Week will also feature at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, taking place this year at the same time in late September.
The scale of Great Big Green Week and the number of people joining its events will underline The Climate Coalition’s message to the Government that it needs to raise its ambition and actions on climate change in this critical year. In a June YouGov survey of 1,745 UK adults for the Coalition, 67 per cent thought the Government should be doing more to combat climate change, compared with only 16 per cent who thought it was doing all it reasonably could. More than half the respondents (54 per cent) said the Government’s activity in this area was too slow.
Many of the Great Big Green Week events will take place in and celebrate local green spaces. A large majority of the respondents, 77 per cent, said that having access to a local green space has been important or very important to them since restrictions due to COVID-19 were introduced in Britain in March 2020.
Cel Spellman, model and designer Georgia May Jagger, actors Iwan Rheon, Liana Cornell, blogger Kelly Eastwood, conservation photographer and reality TV star Tristan Phipps and artist and author Aflie Bowen have all pledged support of Great Big Green Week and are encouraging communities and individuals to get involved and demonstrate the UK people’s desire to protect nature and the climate.
Actor, presenter and WWF Ambassador Cel Spellman said:
“The last 18 months have shown us how much we rely on nature and how much we are a part of it. We have seen and felt a new love and appreciation for our natural world like never before. Yet we still seem to be on the wrong road out of the climate crisis. The solutions are out there, the will for change has never felt stronger. Great Big Green Week will be a wonderful opportunity to learn, inspire, educate and have fun, while demonstrating that we must keep working at big solutions for climate change. It will be a special week of people coming together showing their love for our planet and standing up for its future and in turn their own, especially in the build up to COP26”.
Great Big Green Week is being organised by The Climate Coalition, the UK’s largest group of people dedicated to action against climate change, whose members include more than 100 organisations, including the National Trust, WWF, Women’s Institute, RSPB, Christian Aid and Islamic Relief. Great Big Green Week will create a focal point for climate activities ahead of COP26, bringing people together to celebrate the big and small actions people are taking in the fight against climate change, as well as to demonstrate the scale of ambition for action on climate change that the UK public wants to see from politicians.
Ben Margolis, interim Director of The Climate Coalition said:
“One of the most important things we can all do to tackle climate change is to use our voice, and the Great Big Green Week is an opportunity to bring communities together to do just that. Boris Johnson’s Government has a once in a generation opportunity to build back greener, healthier and fairer from the COVID pandemic and to deliver a successful COP in Glasgow in November. We need him to step up now and lead the world by example with ambitious investment in climate action.”
The Climate Coalition is calling for the legislation and commitments that underpin the UK’s contributions to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. This must include keeping fossil fuels in the ground, rapidly escalating the protection of nature at home and abroad, significantly increasing financial commitments to vulnerable countries and securing millions of green jobs in the UK.
A new film from The Climate Coalition, called ‘Plant A Seed’ encourages people across the UK to bring their communities together for the Great Big Green Week.
Great Big Green Week activities are easy to find and to organise. For more information on how to join an existing event or set one up yourself, go to Great Big Green Week. The Great Big Green Week is Climate Fringe Week in Scotland.
