Our voting system lets our planet burn. We must democratise to decarbonise.

MP Claire Coutinho Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, MP Steve Barclay Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, MP Ed Miliband Shadow Ministers for Energy Security and Net Zero, MP Steve Reed Shadow Minister for Environment, Food and Rur

Compass has just launched this report, joined by a number of organisations and leaders in the fight against climate change in calling for a change to our voting system for the sake of climate. They include:

  • Friends of the Earth
  • Green New Deal Rising
  • Greenpeace
  • Rapid Transition Alliance
When the planet burns it is clear that democracy is not working. The scale of the climate crises we now face is a consequence of a broken political system - and just changing the Ministers controlling the House of Commons will not fix that.

We need to change our political system - in particular our voting system.

We currently have First-Past-the-Post, a winner-takes-all system that locks us into a fossil-fuelled status quo, encourages short-termism, excludes huge swathes of voters, stifles new ideas and cooperative politics, allows parties to ignore national issues, and enshrines the influence of the already rich and powerful. This all makes policies building climate justice so much harder to pursue.

Read the full paper: Democratise to Decarbonise.

Changing the voting system would ensure that everyone’s voice is equal in parliament, which means our MPs would represent the 76% of Britons that support net zero, and the 52% of us that want the government to do more to tackle climate change.

We have come together as organisations and individuals committed primarily to issues of climate justice to ensure that democracy is now a first order issue. We will only get climate justice, when we have democratic justice.

We need an approach to tackling the climate emergency that centres on empowering people all across our country, putting power into people’s votes - instead of entrenching the power of corporations and industry lobbies.

Our ability to win equality in this country rests on breaking open our centralised, and narrow politics.

Join us in calling for a change in our voting system as the cornerstone of action on the climate emergency.

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To: MP Claire Coutinho Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, MP Steve Barclay Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, MP Ed Miliband Shadow Ministers for Energy Security and Net Zero, MP Steve Reed Shadow Minister for Environment, Food and Rur
From: [Your Name]

We have come together as organisations and individuals committed primarily to issues of climate justice to ensure that democracy is now a first order issue.
The scale of the climate crises we now face is a consequence of a broken political system.

We need to change our political system - in particular our voting system.
We currently have First-Past-the-Post, a winner-takes-all system that locks us into a fossil-fuelled status quo, encourages short-termism, excludes huge swathes of voters, stifles new ideas and cooperative politics, allows parties to ignore national issues, and enshrines the influence of the already rich and powerful. This all makes policies building climate justice so much harder to pursue.

We need an approach to tackling the climate emergency that centres on empowering people all across our country. That is why the undersigned call on the government to endorse a change in our voting system as the cornerstone of action on the climate emergency.