Young people from 140 countries who attended a virtual ‘Mock Cop26’ climate summit urge world leaders to prioritise 18 climate policies in a signed treaty, as insurance giant Legal & General commits to halving the carbon emissions of its £81 billion pensions portfolio by 2050. Meanwhile, Britain’s first charging station dedicated to electric cars opens to customers, the Met Office predicts that snowy winters in the UK will become a thing of the past, and Huggies launches eco-friendly wipes that biodegrade in 15 days. It’s the Good With Money weekly news brief.
‘Mock Cop26’ activists vote on treaty ahead of 2021 climate summit
Young people from 140 countries who attended an online ‘Mock Cop26’ climate summit have presented a treaty of 18 policies to Nigel Topping, the UK’s high level climate action champion.
After two weeks of negotiations, 330 delegates aged 11 to 30 from the international youth-led conference presented their formal treaty to Topping at the event’s closing ceremony. The paper calls on world leaders to prioritise 18 environmental policies during Cop26. The event, to be hosted in Glasgow, was postponed until November 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Young people who attended Mock Cop26 want climate education at every level of formal education, tougher ecocide laws, stronger regulation on air quality, a ban on the offshoring of emissions and a commitment to limiting global heating to below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Legal & General to halve carbon emissions of £81bn pension portfolio
Legal & General has pledged to halve the carbon emissions of its £81 billion pensions portfolio within a decade.
It builds on the insurance giant’s commitment to reach net-zero financed emissions by 2050, announced earlier this year.
To achieve the new 2030 goal, Legal & General Retirement (LGR) has set an interim target to reduce the carbon emission intensity of its pensions by 18.5 per cent by 2025.
The company says it is acting in line with the new Pensions Bill, currently progressing through Parliament, which outlines aims for pension schemes to report on the effects of climate change and accelerate their work on sustainability.
Britain’s first electric car forecourt opens
Britain’s first charging station dedicated to electric cars has opened to customers.
Gridseve’s pioneering Electric Forecourt, near Braintree in Essex, is the first of 100 sites to be built across the country in the next five years as part of a £1 billion nationwide programme.
The one-stop-shop for electric car owners features 36 EV chargers and a services building featuring ‘best of British’ retailers, including WH Smiths and the Post Office.
The aim is to provide a reliable and comprehensive network of charging stations to supply the growing number of electric vehicle drivers.
With Boris Johnson bringing forward a ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars to 2030, already surging demand for EVs is set to rocket in the next decade.
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UK snowy winters could be gone in decades due to climate change
Snowy winter days could become a thing of the past in the UK because of climate change, according to a Met Office analysis.
Snowball fights and sledging could be distant memories for Brits by the end of the century, with below-freezing temperatures confined only to northern Scotland and higher areas, the projections suggest.
The research, shared with the BBC’s Panorama, suggest that by the 2040s most of the south of England may not see days with freezing temperatures. Instead, there will be more extreme weather events such as heavier rainfall.
Senior Met Office scientist Dr Lizzie Kendon told the BBC: “We’re saying by the end of the century much of the lying snow will have disappeared entirely except over the highest ground. The overarching picture is warmer, wetter winters; hotter, drier summers. But within that, we get this shift towards more extreme events, so more frequent and intense extremes, so heavier rainfall when it occurs.”
It comes as 2020 looks set to be the world’s second hottest year on record, according to a United Nations report.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson this week announced a world-leading target to cut carbon emissions by 68 per cent by 2030 from 1990 levels in a bid to curb climate change.
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Huggies launches biodegradable baby wipes
Huggies has launched a new range of eco-friendly baby wipes that biodegrade in landfill in just 15 days.
The move is a major step towards Huggies’ goal to eliminate plastics from its baby wipe range in the UK, including packaging, over the next five years.
The BBC’s War on Plastic series last year found that 11 billion wet wipes are sold in the UK every year, 90 per cent of which contain some form of plastic. The presenters of the show put pressure on Kimberly Clark, which owns Huggies, as well as P&G and Johnson & Johnson to disclose how much plastic they use in their wipes and how they plan to reduce or remove it.
Meanwhile, Mars Wrigley UK has unveiled redesigned packaging for its most popular brands including M&Ms, Galaxy Counters, Skittles and Malteasers, which it claims will mitigate the use of 51 tonnes of plastic per year.
