The MP tastes the last raspberry of the season at Hanover Primary School

BEFORE travelling to Brazil for the United Nations climate conference, Islington South MP Dame Emily Thornberry visited a primary school in Angel to learn about an eco project closer to home.

Potatoes, broad beans, tomatoes and raspberries are all growing in the roof garden at Hanover Primary School, where lunchtime peelings are composted back into the soil as part of pupils’ efforts to help the environment.

On Friday, Dame Emily joined members of the school’s “Green Team” for a tour of the garden. Chief grower and teacher Denise Farrell explained how they collect rain water to feed the plants, and will even compost leaf mulch and cardboard boxes to keep waste as low as possible.

“We smash up coffee pods and put coffee in the compost too, which the kids love. I can see them getting into the rhythm of it – they’re like, ‘what job am I doing today?’”

The rooftop garden was set up last September, but the Green Team has only been going for a few months, so “there is a lot more we want to do,” Ms Farrell said.

The children have big plans: more recycling bins and rain water vats, a pond for dragonflies to spawn, and even beehives – though Ms Farrell wasn’t quite so sure about that one.

“The long-term plan is to open up this garden in the summer, maybe to refugee families or families that aren’t going on holiday, because that’s when the biggest harvest is but the pupils aren’t here,” she added.

Dame Emily Thornberry at Hanover Primary School

Dame Emily told the Tribune she hopes to use her time at COP30 to meet with charities and parliamentarians to find out how other countries are fighting climate change and what the UK can do next.

Having a climate denier like Donald Trump in the White House is “disruptive”, she said, but it’s not “an excuse for everybody else to feel hopeless”.

She added: “We’re not in the right place, but if we believe in multilateralism, which we do, we have to push forward.

“If we say it’s all hopeless, that’s just getting us off the hook. What are we going to do about it?

“We are the first industrialised nation. We do have a responsibility to make sure that we do the right thing.”

As to whether the leaders of developed countries are rising to that challenge, Dame Emily said it was a “mixed bag”, but that the UK’s climate action is stronger under Keir Starmer’s leadership than it would be if any other party were in power.

“We’re never doing enough, and I think it’s right to keep pushing the government to do more, whilst acknowledging that we are in a better place than we would have been without this particular government,” she said.