Lobbying Zac Goldsmith

On 14th October, four members of the group went along to the community centre adjoining Kingston Mosque to talk to Zac Goldsmith, Conservative MP for Richmond Park, about WDM’s current campaigns. On climate debt, Zac was broadly supportive of the principle that those who have contributed very little to climate change should not have to bear the costs of adapting to it. He appeared surprised to learn that so much of the UK’s funding for climate mitigation is being administered by the World Bank and provided in the form of loans rather than grants, an arrangement he did not support. He also spoke of other schemes designed to mitigate climate change that might bring benefits to poorer countries. On food speculation, while arguing that there are other reasons for long term global food price inflation that cannot be easily addressed, he agreed that the price volatility caused by speculation is problematic. He was interested to hear about the measures WDM is campaigning for to address this, in particular the use of position limits. We left him with the latest WDM reports on these two issues, and have asked him to write to the ministers concerned. We are now hoping that he will report back to us.