The ACT Carbon Cutters group had a discussion recently about ACT’s political orientation. ACT clearly wants the government, as well as local councils and individuals, to take action on the climate and ecological emergency, and some political parties are more in tune with that than others. So the question raised was why we shouldn’t ally with the parties that have relevant policies.
After wider discussion within ACT, we decided on the following statement to make clear why ACT has always been politically neutral, and why it is important to remain so.
“The aim of ACT is to help people to take action to mitigate climate change and repair ecological damage by providing independent encouragement and support to local councils, community groups, businesses and individuals in Teignbridge.
In order to retain this independence, we are strictly neutral on party political matters so we can liaise and engage with council members regardless of which party they represent.
However, where there is clear evidence that government and/or local council policies conflict with our independent encouragement and support to keep Teignbridge on a path to no more than 1.5C of warming, we will highlight this in a non-party political way. We will only comment on the likely impact of the policies concerned, and suggest alternatives that would better achieve our stated mission.”
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