Hundreds of Stop Climate Chaos supporters came together on March 1st to 'carbon date' some of the UK's leading MPs.
They weren't trying to guess the ages of these venerable decision makers; they were borrowing the 'speed dating' format to tell MPs what they thought the government should do about climate change.
65 MPs, including David Cameron, Sir Menzies Campbell, Margaret Beckett and Chris Huhne, sat face to face with individuals concerned about the impacts of climate change and experienced first hand the strength of public feeling on the issue - and the breadth of support for tough action.
More than 150 Greenpeace supporters turned up to the event. "It was extremely constructive," said Julie Salmon of South West London, "both in terms of coverage and the fact that there are several high profile politicians here."
Janet Miller of Derbyshire agreed. "I'm impressed with how well it's gone," she said. "It works very well as a different way of getting to MPs."
It was the first time that such a wide range of development, faith and environmental group supporters have come together to persuade decision makers to support urgent action against climate change. As well as expressing their own thoughts, supporters of the UK's new climate change coalition asked the decision makers to take three key steps:
1. To publicly declare their support for international action to make sure that global greenhouse gas emissions peak and decline by 2015.
2. To ensure the government establishes a Carbon Budget, aiming to reduce UK carbon emissions by 3% a year.
3. To help poorer countries cope with the impacts of climate change.
While many politicians were non-committal, others showed more enthusiasm, with Michael Meacher calling climate change "the single greatest threat facing the human race" and Colin Challen saying that the issue deserved a cabinet minister of its own.
Shadow Environment Minister Greg Barker, who had come out in favour of decentralised energy earlier in the day, supported the idea of a carbon budget. Barry Sheerman agreed that there should be a tax on aviation and Andrew Smith argued that the environmental costs of transport should be built into ticket prices.
Still, many supporters remained sceptical of the political rhetoric. "The MPs have generally been very positive," said Greenpeace supporter Brian Woodgate of Berkshire. "But to actually take the step and make the big investment needed still seems to be beyond their grasp."
"The day was a very good start," said Stephen Tindale, Executive Director of Greenpeace. "There was a good buzz and a lot of enthusiasm. There could have been more MPs - it shows they're still not taking climate change seriously - but today laid a very solid foundation for the coalition and its future work."
The Stop Climate Chaos coalition is planning a global day of action on November 4th 2006, with people around the world taking to the streets to call for urgent action against climate change.
You can read The Guardian article about the event here.
