Climate Voter

On Monday, an alliance of environmental organisations launched the Climate Voter campaign. The aim is to get people to signal their intention to vote on the basis of climate change policy, in the hope of driving parties to compete for that bloc of support. The campaign got 10,000 supporters in its first 32 hours, and is currently sitting on 11,300 or so.

I think this is a good thing. At the same time, it needs to get a lot more people to sign up for it to have the sort of impact it wants. While 11,300 voters sounds like a lot - and it is - its about 0.5% of the 2.26 million who voted last election. Which probably isn't enough to shift anyone's policies. OTOH, if it grows to 50,000 - around 2% of expected voter numbers - then it might begin to have an impact. If it gets more than 100,000 (a number I regard as highly unrealistic, but what the hell) then no party will be able to ignore them.

These mass-signalling exercises can work. So, if you care about the climate, sign up.