Early Day Motion 407 - End Development Aid for Oil
137 MPs showed their support for Plan B and its aims by signing Early Day Motion 407 on Development Aid for Oil. This calls on the government to phase out international aid for oil companies, properly monitor their poverty impact, and invest instead in clean, decentralised renewable energy.
The EDM 407 closed at the end of the end of the last parliament in 2006.
Plan B and People and Planet are working on a new EDM which will demand that the Department for International Development (DFID) to produce a strategy on energy and climate change which contributes to overall reductions in CO2 emissions by phasing out support for oil and gas projects, massively increasing support for renewable, decentralised energy supply.
Plan B is also using the clear expression of political support from the Early Day Motion to urge for an International Development Select Committee investigation into DFID support for the oil industry.
Until the new EDM is registered you can help us keep the pressure on by writing to your MP, reminding them that developing countries where oil is extracted gain little financial benefit from oil extraction, and that any serious effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions requires a phase out of the massive financial subsidies and aid we give as taxpayers to the oil companies.
Feel moved to express yourself to DFID? You may want to ask DFID how its support for big oil companies squares with its mission to alleviate poverty and reduce climate change. enquiry@dfid.gov.uk
FURTHER DETAILS
You may want to read the summary of the 'Pumping Poverty' report before you write. Published by Platform the report looks at how much support for 'big oil' comes from DFID and partner organisations such as the World Bank, and how little of the oil profits find their way to the people living in the developing countries that keep us supplied in our oil habit.
EDMs can be a good gauge of parliamentary opinion on issues, and a way to indicate public support for specific issues. EDM 407 'Development Aid for Oil' was sponsored by Michael Meacher and a cross-party group of MPs. In order to maximise the report's readership and chances of its recommendations getting taken up, we are asking you to write to your MP in support of the report. We have a sample letter with points you may want to raise, but please write your own letter, as standard, form letters to MPs on issues rarely get the attention the subject deserves. You can also email your MP online via Friends of the Earth.
If you are unsure who your MP is then check this website: www.locata.co.uk/commons, and if you want to write to your MP online, you can fax your MP directly from this website: www.faxyourmp.com – just follow the instructions, pasting your unique letter in the space provided. Please read the instructions and notes on the website, and remember it is very important to ensure that your letter is original!
We would be very interested in the responses from the MPs and it would be helpful if you could post/email a copy to the Swansea office.
Many thanks
Ian Williams, coordinator 'Plan B' – for a sustainable energy future