Sixth form students from St Benedict's School in Ealing had a chance to challenge the MP for Ealing Central and Acton, Rupa Huq on climate change last week.

The Q&A session at the school on Eaton Rise coincided with the UN's COP26 climate conference taking place in Glasgow, which comes to a close this weekend.

Among issues raised by the students were the controversial lower traffic neighbourhood schemes and the development of high-rise flats across the Ealing Borough.

After an opening speech stressing the links between climate justice, economic justice and intergenerational fairness, a student-led Q&A session followed covering an array of both local and national climate issues.

One student challenged Rupa on biodiversity loss through compulsory purchase schemes associated with HS2 and another student asked, "whether the new high rise developments lead to over population and thereby, over exploitation of resources."

St Benedict's School teaches climate education to all ages and the school recently took part in the 'Be Bold Boris' petition, where the students demand climate change action from the Government.

Miss Smith, second in the Geography department said: "We are already seeing the impacts of climate change, this summer alone terrible floods hit Western Germany, forest fires tore through Turkey and closer to home, the past month in the UK has seen some of the warmest temperatures averages on record.

"The impacts are already here and if action is not taken, will get worse."

Anna-Maria S, a year 12 student said, "It was interesting to hear an insider's perspective of Labour Party aims and the Government's response to climate change in general."

Isabel M-B, a year 13 student said: "I enjoyed listening to Dr Huq's opinion on both the benefits of HS2 and the problems that come with it."

Adam G, a year 13 student said: "During Dr Huq's talk and questions and answers, one of the most interesting points in terms of political significance was that of the role of local politics and councils, and also Sadiq Khan's role as Mayor of London.

"It's clear that teamwork and bipartisanship are needed between political parties and branches of government for the climate crisis to be solved.

"Cooperation and compromise being critical to taking the next steps forward in reducing the UK's carbon footprint was a lesson taught to us by Dr Huq, and one we all can appreciate and value, as the good of the planet should come before our political differences."

Rupa said: "It's great that the COP26 event up in Scotland has galvanised the young of Ealing.

"In the first week of the conference, I challenged the PM Boris Johnson himself on his crackpot climate busting pledge of expand Heathrow Airport, already the biggest emitter of C02 in Europe by a further 260,000 flights a year.

"I found his answer that we were heading for guilt free zero carbon aviation unconvincing in the extreme.

"By contrast, the St Benedicts pupils were really switched on and have a great grasp of the issues.

"The future looks to be safe in their hands as the next generation. We just have to be careful what the state of the planet we hand over to them is in".