It's not everyday that brings politicians, Environmental activists and Belly dancers out onto the streets of Stafford.   This Saturday did just that. I was invited by a number of environmental groups to play my part in an International Day of Action on Climate Change. This is part of a series of events to put pressure on politicians all over the world to come to Copenhagen in December and reach a Fair, Ambitious and Binding agreement on the reduction of carbon emissions. Scientists tell us that this is what we need to do in order to avoid the risk of catastrophic climate change. The best advice is that we need to cut the carbon in the aptmosphere to below 350 parts per million. I as a minister within the Department of Energy and Climate Change am working constantly to find ways in which we can honour our committment as a country to cut our carbon emissions.

This is a partnership. Politicians can create the right legislative framework to encourage people to make the right choices and do the right things, but individuals must play their part too.

Organisations like friends of the earth and Transition Town Stafford are really important beacuse they are pioneering the ways of living with low carbon - and can help to guide the rest of us in the right direction.

I was glad to take part in Saturday's events - I addressed people in the square, gave a talk on the road to Copenhagen which you can listen to here, and answered a lot of detailed questions from the audience,  which you can also listen to here Road to Copenhagen questions and answers at Stafford  

( sorry these audio files are taking a long time to load. They are large. When we find ways of making it quicker we will put this on instead!)  

I would encourage people to join in with the 10:10 campaign - to help us all cut carbon emmissions by 10% in the next year.

 Please get in touch with your views about how we can cut carbon emissions!