An Open Letter To Our Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister

RE: THE TIME IS NOW

We need tangible climate action. And we need it NOW. 

On 31 October - 12 November 2021, the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow. The COP26 summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The IPCC report this year stated that climate change is unequivocally caused by human activity. Since we started burning fossil fuels, in the industrial revolution, global temperatures have increased by over 1C, but globally, investments are still made into the fossil fuel industry at a current rate of £11M per minute. This is insanity.

Many say this is our last chance to redirect our current course of self destruction due to the climate crisis. There is no time left and we're calling for immediate, tangible action. 

That’s why we’ve taken this opportunity to write an open letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. To demand real change. 

Since conception in 2017, we at BYBI continue to make tangible steps to achieve carbon negative status by 2025. Businesses like ours need to be supported by the government to drive an integrated strategy that enables a decisive and realistic change. We are proud to use our business and platforms to champion this message, but we need the voice of the government to be louder. 

We and like minded businesses that have an environmental focus face a lot of challenges in our mission. Including only limited availability of innovative, green materials - and they come with a hefty price tag. Much of the innovation comes from EU countries which, since Brexit, have become more expensive to deal with. And there’s a lack of support from the government to fund critical research to help small businesses reduce their carbon output. 

Rather than supporting businesses like ours, the UK has paid £4B of public money to oil and gas industries since the 2015 Paris Agreement.

In our letter, we have demanded that the UK government:

• Create meaningful tax incentives for businesses to switch to renewable energy and to make significant carbon reductions across UK manufacturing

• Implement a more aggressive carbon tax than the UK Emissions Trading Scheme that penalises the biggest fossil fuel polluters, as these current penalties are not enough of a deterrent

• To Stop Cambo and all other new investments into oil and gas, ensuring a Just Transition away from fossil fuels

• Bring forward the UK’s net-zero goal from 2050 to 2030, to give us real hope of limiting global warming to +1.5

We can all do our bit to help stop the climate crisis. If you’d like to get involved but don’t know where to start, read our blog post on how you can help drive change.

Dominika Minarovic & Elsie Rutterford, BYBI founders