Election 2010 - our best bits

7 June 2010

But in amongst Cleggmania, hung parliaments, coalition deals and the arrival of new Ministers and MPs, the voice of the environment was heard.

Why? Because we had you.

So what happened?

• Over 8500 of you told the leaders not to forget the climate
  And the environment got its highest ever profile in the manifestos.
• You told your candidates to pledge for the planet
  And over 600 signed up to our key climate demands.
• You told the parties they hadn't gone far enough
  And their frontbenches started supporting real climate action.

But those are just the headlines. Here are a few more of our favourite moments...

John's bright idea

We asked our supporters to come up with creative ways of highlighting how many candidates had signed our climate pledges.

And John Fellowes from Kingston came up with the colourful idea of using eco-friendly balloons.

Somewhat ironically we couldn't source enough green 'green' balloons - the Green Party's candidates were well in the lead - but it really showed up the Tories' poor effort.

Hustings - our local groups gave their candidates a grilling

All across the country people were organising election hustings - including lots of our own local groups.

These were fantastic opportunities for people to grill their candidates on green issues face-to-face.

Hackney and Tower Hamlets Friends of the Earth's election hustings

Hackney and Tower Hamlets Friends of the Earth managed to get over 120 people along to their hustings - and secured a commitment from Labour leadership candidate Diane Abbott to support a 40% cut in CO2 by 2020.

A Conservative commitment

Although the Conservative candidates were recuctant to sign our climate pledges, we did secure a crucial commitment on Local Carbon budgets.

They would ensure every council plays its part in tackling climate change.

I am grateful to all those who have written to me or e-mailed me about local carbon budgets. I can confirm that we recognise the need for local carbon budgets as part of the implementation of the Climate Change Act.

Meeting Caroline Lucas

We met up with the first ever Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, while she was still on the campaign trail. Here's what she had to say about us:

We also met up with the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem environment spokespeople. Watch the interviews on our YouTube channel.

An interesting appointment

Whatever your thoughts on the Con-Lib coalition, there is definitely a positive to be taken from Chris Huhne's appointment as Energy and Climate Secretary.

He was one of the batch of new MPs to sign up to all of our climate pledges so that gives us a great bargaining tool!

Our debate-watching party

The environment was far from being the main talking point of the debates - but we pushed it up the agenda.

We got a climate question in the second debate.

By the third Clegg and Brown both spoke unpromoted about how action on climate change is also good for the economy - what we've been saying all along.

Thanks to everyone who got involved with our live chat on the election blog and Twitter. It's a big help to hear your take on things too.

A celebrity backer

Celebrity chef and food writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall was the first famous face to get behind our campaign. Unsurprisingly it was the food aspect that really took his fancy: