Dorset Olympian calls on big businesses for climate summit
Dorset Olympic sailor Hannah Mills is calling on big businesses to make big changes ahead of the COP26 summit.
A Dorset Olympic sailor is calling on big businesses and the government to take responsibility for the planet ahead of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
The UN organised climate conference will gather leaders from across the globe to accelerate action on climate change.
Dorset-based Olympian Hannah Mills says many of us says discussions about how people can cut plastic waste in their households don't go far enough this time, though. Instead, she's turning to big businesses and governments to make changes that can make an impact.
Research by Budweiser Brewing Group shows about three quarters of us are concerned about climate change, but only a third of us have a good grip on what Net Zero even means. In case you don't, a company is considered to be 'net zero' if it removes as much carbon from the atmosphere as it produces from it's activities, for instance by planting trees.
That's why Hannah Mills is calling on government's to show strong leadership at the summit which starts on Sunday.
She said:
"I think the global goal around carbon emissions needs to be upped. I'd love to see global emissions halved by 2030, being a global, concrete solid goal, that there's a clear roadmap for how people are actually going to achieve that. It's one thing saying it, another thing achieving it.
"It needs to be more urgent. 2050, 2060, that's such a long time in people's future that it doesn't necessarily create that sense of urgency that we really, really need to tackle this global crisis."
Budweiser's research also shows that only about a third of us felt we act very responsibly to protect the planet.
Hannah says other businesses need to follow the brewers example by making it easier for us as consumer to pick their products.
"For me, big businesses and governments have so much power to make huge scale change and really move the needle in terms of what we need to be doing to reduce the carbon, particularly, going into the atmosphere but also obviously plastic in the seas.
"To see a business like Budweiser conducting these kinds of surveys and implementing the things they're doing within their business particularly around brewing locally, and sourcing ingredients locally and removing the plastic rings from all of their cans.
"Just really positive things and I think that making consumer choice easy because brands are doing the hard work in making the changes to be more sustainable, I think that's only a positive message."