Environmental campaigners from Swansea today joined sixteen thousand protestors from across the UK who descended on Parliament for a mass climate lobby. They were met outside Parliament by Geraint Davies, MP for Swansea West, who has been campaigning on climate change, fracking, plastic pollution and air pollution.

Mr Davies said: “It’s wonderful to see the commitment of people from Swansea to tackling climate change and restoring nature. The atmosphere here today has been magnificent, with thousands of people, old and young, joining together to demand faster, more ambitious action.

“I’ve been clear that we need to take radical action to reduce our net emissions to zero as quickly as possible. But as Extinction Rebellion and the school strikers have made abundantly clear, 2050 is far too late. The planet is expected to warm by 1.5 degrees by 2030, so we need to get our emissions to zero by then, whilst also seizing the opportunity to reverse the decline in wildlife numbers and restore our natural world.

“That’s why I’ve been calling for a ban on fracking, a tax on unrecyclable plastics, and a 2030 deadline for ending the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles.

“Climate change is the greatest economic, environmental and health related challenge we have ever faced. The government must not ignore the thousands of people here today who have one clear message: the time for words has passed, the time for action is now.”

Constituents from all over Wales and the rest of the UK formed a mile-long line from Parliament, organised by region and constituency. Volunteers then shuttled MPs in rickshaws to meet their constituents in line and hear what they had to say.

The lobby was organised by The Climate Coalition and Greener UK. It was the largest climate and nature mass lobby there has ever been, with twice as many people attending as did a similar lobby in 2015.