We are very pleased to announce that the inaugural York Environment Week will run from 28th November to 6th December 2020, and will hopefully be an annual event after that.
Originally devised to take place in the week before the UK-hosted COP26, we have had to make some changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. COP26 was originally expected to take place at the end of 2020, but has now been moved to 2021. However, we have decided to run a mostly virtual York Environment Week in its original 2020 slot, which should hopefully give us plenty of practice for running another one next year, again in the run up to the rescheduled COP26.
The idea of the festival is to showcase and celebrate the work of York’s tireless environmental groups who often go unnoticed, and to raise awareness of the climate and ecological emergency which poses a serious threat to humans and other species across the globe. Elected representatives from around the world will meet at COP26 to discuss issues related to this, and they will make decisions which will affect us all for many years to come. By shining a light on these issues ahead of the conference, we hope to educate and empower the residents of York so that they can hold their representatives to account and demand that they make the right decisions to protect our future.
There will be many events taking place over the week, organised by different environmental groups. Most or all of them will be virtual e.g. webinars and live broadcasts, but there may also be the opportunity for some physical events, provided they follow COVID-19 guidelines and do not unnecessarily put people at risk. We do not have details of all these events at this early stage, but will be revealing more information as we get closer to the launch date. So please check back often and subscribe to the mailing list!