CLIMATE campaign group Extinction Rebellion has said its meeting with Environment Secretary Michael Gove was "very disappointing".
The activists held a week of action across the country earlier this month to pressure governments to declare a climate emergency but, after today's talks, they said Gove refused to make the declaration.
The Scottish and Welsh governments have now declared climate emergencies, as well as the cities of Manchester and London.
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One activist, Clare Farrell, who was in the meeting with Gove, said: “It was less s**t than I thought it would be, but only mildly.
"I was surprised to hear a radical reflection on our economic paradigm from Michael Gove when he talked about how our model is extractive and destructive – and that we need to move to a circular model. And that similarly a debt based economy doesn’t do right by young people, that it is creating a huge debt for them and that it has to change."
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She continued: “Unfortunately what failed to emerge was an actual way forward. I’d like to remind him that we have a 1% chance of hitting 1.5 degrees – that urgency wasn’t in the room.”
Gove said he "shared their high ideals" to tackle climate change.
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