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Tag: Carla Denyer

  • Bristol Becomes First UK City to Ban Fast Fashion Adverts Over Industry’s Environmental Toll

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    Article by Ellen Ormesher republished from DeSmog.

    Climate commentary added to a British Airways billboard. (Credit: Brandalism)

    Policy update also restricts advertising for fossil fuels products and services in council owned ad sites.

    Bristol has joined nearly two dozen other UK cities in cracking down on the promotion of high-carbon products like petrol and airline flights on council-owned property.

    In a UK first, however the ban also includes adverts that encourage the over-consumption of fast fashion – an industry that demands vast amounts of resources such as water and oil-based synthetic materials to keep up with global clothing trends. The textile sector is responsible for 2-10 percent of global carbon emissions yearly, according to a 2023 report by the United Nations Environment Program, along with nearly 10 percent of ocean microplastic pollution.

    Bristol city councillors voted on September 14 to expand the city’s 2021 policy restricting advertising for junk food, alcohol, gambling, payday loans, and tobacco to include products and services that are major sources of climate-heating carbon pollution.

    Along with fast fashion, the ban now includes adverts or marketing for oil and gas companies, alongside cars running in whole or part on petrol or diesel, all SUVs, airlines, airports, and cruises.

    The restrictions apply to council-owned sites across the city, including bus stops. However, ads for these industries may still run on billboards and screens that are not owned by the council.

    Local representatives and campaigners welcome the ban, saying it will reduce climate impacts and improve neighbourhoods.

    “Advertising forces itself upon all of us. While scrolling, while walking, while waiting for the bus, it has negative impacts on our health and wellbeing,” said deputy leader of Bristol City Council Heather Mack, who spearheaded the policy. “The advert ban “is something we can do quite easily to reduce our climate impact and improve our local neighbourhoods,” she said.

    “We know ad bans are a catalyst for healthy change,” said Nicola Wilks, co-founder and co-director of the campaign group Adfree Cities, in a statement. “Removing tobacco ads saved lives by reducing levels of smoking. As a Bristol resident who cares deeply about climate change and air pollution, I am proud that Bristol has gone even further than other UK councils in curbing polluting ads. It feels like common sense.” 

    According to Adfree Cities, more than 20 UK councils have now introduced some form of restriction on the advertising of polluting products and services, citing their incompatibility with goals to improve air quality and reduce climate-harming emissions.

    Bristol councillors’ decision is the latest in a global trend of cities and regions targeting major polluters with ad bans. In the UK, Sheffield and Edinburgh have adopted similar bans on high-carbon advertising on council-owned property. In the Netherlands,  The Hague, and Amsterdam have introduced legal bans on fossil fuel advertising in public spaces citywide.

    The advertising and fossil fuel industries are resisting these bans. DeSmog recently revealed that 15 companies and trade associations, including oil and gas giant TotalEnergies, lobbied to dilute France’s national restrictions on fossil fuel advertising. 

    DeSmog also exposed a last- minute lobbying attempt earlier this year by the world’s largest outdoor advertising company, JCDecaux, to prevent the Amsterdam ban.

    While supporting the ban in Bristol, city councillors said there was a “moral argument” for banning ads for industries that are harmful. However, Conservative councillor John Goulandris said the policy made him “uneasy”. “I’m surprised you haven’t said that we’re going to ban Christmas, because Christmas is a time of great consumption, it’s very bad for the environment”, he said.

    Goulandris is not the first Tory representative to oppose advertising restrictions on harmful products. Former culture minister Lord Ed Vaizey pushed back against increasing regulation of the advertising industry at the annual Advertising Association conference in January 2026.

    “I see a political class that is tempted to ban what it doesn’t like rather than use the power of advertising to change behaviour,” he said.

    Bristol’s updated policy has the potential to incur losses of up to £80,000 per year of advertising revenue, according to a report prepared by Bristol’s policy, strategy, and public affairs team — while acknowledging that neither Sheffield nor Edinburgh, which have similar restrictions, have reported any financial impacts as a result.

    The report also found that the city’s advertising revenue did not decrease following its 2021 ban on junk food advertising — the first outside London — despite a projected £150,000 loss in advertising revenue.

    In a statement, Carla Denyer, MP for Bristol Central, called the policy update  “hugely rewarding.” Denyer helped to institute the junk food advertising ban in 2021, and has continued to advocate for further restrictions on the advertising of harmful products.

    “Our Green-led council is making huge strides on Bristol’s climate and sustainability commitments, working on public transport infrastructure, home heating and community energy,” she said in the statement. “It makes no sense for these efforts to be running alongside advertisements for things like oil and gas companies, SUVs, or fast fashion which do not align with our community values.”

    United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on governments to ban all fossil fuel advertising, calling the advertising and PR companies who work with the polluting industries “enablers to planetary destruction.”

    Reporting contributed by Emily J Gertz.

    Article by Ellen Ormesher republished from DeSmog.

    Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.
    Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)
    Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
    Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards

  • War on Iran shows that economies are vulnerable to oil shocks

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    Responding to the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) finding that the cost of Net Zero is less than the cost of the 2022 Ukraine oil price shock, the Green Party has today said we need to transition to clean energy as quickly as possible to protect people and the economy from future oil shocks. 

    Contrary to Reform UK’s unfounded claims about the cost of Net Zero, the CCC has today confirmed that the benefits of Net Zero outweigh the costs: “for every £1 spent there will be £2 to £4 in benefits” they conclude. 

    Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
    Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

    Green Party leader Zack Polanski said “Our dependency on fossil fuels is a strategic vulnerability for the UK – as evidenced by the war between Russia and Ukraine and the now the war on Iran. We need to make the transition to clean energy as fast as we can to protect people and our economy from the price shocks and instability that come when oil prices spike.” 

    Green Party's Bristol Central MP Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
    Green Party’s Bristol Central MP Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

    Green Party MP Carla Denyer, who leads on energy security and net zero, said “This report makes a compelling case: that cutting carbon emissions makes sense for our economy, as well as for the safety of our climate.

    “The numbers speak for themselves – investing in Net Zero pays dividends, avoiding the billions of pounds in climate damages that we would face as the cost of not acting, while also giving us warmer homes, cheaper bills, cleaner air and healthier lives for us and future generations.”

    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.

  • ‘Zack is a phenomenal leader’: Siân Berry on the Green party’s next steps as membership doubles

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    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/30/zack-is-a-phenomenal-leader-sian-berry-on-the-green-partys-next-steps-as-membership-doubles

    Siân Berry has a long history in politics and success was sweet when she took the Brighton seat. Photograph: Ian West/PA

    Since Zack Polanski took over as leader, the party has doubled its membership and its four MPs want to take on Reform’s anger and build community spirit

    “Someone has to be out there making the narrative for social security. Someone has to fight the corrosive attitudes to people on benefits,” says Siân Berry, who has just finished her first year as a Green MP in the House of Commons.

    She is speaking to the Guardian in her Brighton constituency office, formerly occupied by the legendary Caroline Lucas who flew a lone flag as the only member of parliament for the Green party for 14 years.

    Now, however, there are four MPs including Berry, battling together, she says, to hold the space for the left at a moment when it feels the far right has hypnotised the entire political body. “Often Adrian [Ramsay, MP for Waveney Valley] is the only one bringing up animal welfare in Defra questions, or Carla [Denyer, MP for Bristol Central] will be the only person arguing for a refugee’s right to work to the Home Office.” They have all, at different times, been the only party to raise the need for taxes on extreme wealth.

    “Caroline was a lone voice in parliament,” she says. ‘But there are four of us so we can share responsibilities. We each shadow six government departments.” Berry’s portfolio covers crime and policing, justice, transport, work and pensions, culture, media and sport and democratic standards. “We absolutely have to be ready if an issue comes up. There are some issues where if a Green isn’t in the chamber asking a question, that question won’t be asked.

    ‘There are four of us so we can share responsibilities’: from left, Siân Berry, Carla Denyer, Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns. Photograph: Ian West/PA

    …

    Most of all, Berry longs to see strong action on climate. “The climate situation is awful. A two degree rise is within sight. We are on a knife-edge of whether we can protect this ecosystem. It’s our only home.”

    Original article at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/30/zack-is-a-phenomenal-leader-sian-berry-on-the-green-partys-next-steps-as-membership-doubles

    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.

  • Green Party responds to ‘extreme, inhumane’ immigration proposals

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    Image of the Green Party's Bristol Central MP Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
    Image of the Green Party’s Bristol Central MP Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

    Bristol Central’s Green Party MP, Carla Denyer, has responded to changes to the UK’s asylum policy, that would see asylum seekers having to wait 20 years to apply to settle permanently, and be subjected to regular reviews every two-and-a-half years, meaning people could be returned to their home nation if it is deemed safe.

    Denyer said “This is a new low from this government – plumbing the depths of performative cruelty, in hopes that the public won’t notice they have no answers to the real issues facing communities across this country.

    “Confiscating the belongings of people fleeing war and violence, and trapping refugees in perpetual limbo, where even those who have been granted asylum would have the constant threat of deportation hanging over their heads, undermining integration and making it impossible to put down roots. These are extreme, inhumane proposals from a desperate and failing government.

    “The only way to prevent people making dangerous crossings by small boats is to open safe and managed routes for people to claim asylum in the UK. There are hints Mahmood could introduce such schemes – a sensible government would focus on this workable policy rather than divisive gimmicks.”

  • ICJ ruling leaves UK with duty to speed up green transition

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    Image of the Green Party's Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
    Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

    Reacting to the International Court of Justice’s first-ever ruling on climate change, co-leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer MP, said:

    “In a landmark ruling today the ICJ has made clear that failure to take decisive action to protect the climate, through continued fossil fuel production and consumption and granting fossil fuel exploration licences, can be considered as acting ‘wrongfully’. This means the UK has a legal duty to speed up the transition towards a cleaner, greener economy and block any new licences for the extraction of fossil fuels. 

    “The ruling also made clear that human rights must be at the heart of climate action because climate breakdown affects our rights to health, homes, and livelihoods.

    “The court has recognised that rich countries like the UK, responsible for ongoing and historic pollution, have a special responsibility to act, and to offer compensation to countries and communities already suffering from floods, droughts, and rising sea levels.

    “Today’s ruling should be the moment we draw a line. Governments that fail to act and polluters that refuse to clean up their act must no longer be allowed to harm communities either at home or across the globe with impunity.”