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Campaign Against Climate Change |
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Campaign Against Climate Change |
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Target Ten Thousand: Help us raise money from regular contributions to keep the campaign going at full tempo. |
Campaign Against Climate Change on:
Campaign
against Climate Change is part of the Stop Climate Chaos
coalition.
Campaign against Climate Change
Top Floor
5 Caledonian Road
London N1 9DX
+44 (0)2078339311
+44 (0)7903316331
info@campaigncc.org
CCC is always looking for volunteers of all kinds: if you think you can help at all please contact info@campaigncc.org . There are also the following vacant volunteer posts : Finance & Fundraising Manager, International Outreach Assistant and Events Coordinator .
For some time a scientific consensus has been emerging that we have very little time left to prevent a climate catastrophe. The rise in emissions must be halted and reversed, more and more scientists tell us, in “under 10 years” or “in 100 months”. Of course we don’t know exactly how long we have, we just know it looks increasingly like a very short time before we reach a ‘tipping point’ where ‘positive feedbacks’ in the earth’s own processes take over and the whole thing is out of our control.
At the same time the governments of the world have been painfully and disgracefully slow in responding to the emergency. A global response is essential with all, or almost all, of the world’s nations acting together but so far the only thing that has been achieved of this kind is the Kyoto Protocol which is far too limited in scope, full of loopholes and currently lacks the endorsement of the world’s most powerful country. Yet it is the only global emissions reductions agreement that has been achieved and it leads on to a second “post-kyoto” stage which could potentially represent a much stronger and more ambitious treaty whereby the world’s richer nations lead the way to real reductions in global emissions. But everyone is agreed that the time for reaching a ‘post-kyoto’ agreement runs out at the UN Climate Talks in December next year in Copenhagen. It is a fantastically tall order but, in the light of the very short time scientists say we have left, the Talks in Copenhagen next year look like our last chance to achieve an agreement that will stave off climate catastrophe.
Our National Climate March (and the Global Day of Action 2008) mark this year’s UN Climate talks in Poznan, Poland – which are desperately important for the chance of progress they offer towards the kind of deal we need at Copenhagen next year. But more than that, we have a very great distance that we need to move world leaders and politicians in the direction of meaningful action on climate and very little time to do it in : this December’s Global Day of Action and the National Climate March represent probably the last major mobilisations (global and national), before the mobilisations that will take place next year at or near the time of the Copenhagen Talks themselves. We hope and expect those mobilisations next year to be much greater than this year's but they are likely to be in many ways too late to influence the mindset of the people taking the decisions.
Here in the UK we need to push the government to do its utmost to secure a robust EU negotiating position that mandates ambitious emissions reductions by richer countries by 2020 (and deter it from, for instance, trying to water down the EU targets for renewable energy as it has been doing). And we need to make sure that the UK is adopting policies that are clearly designed to make real emissions reductions feasible and that give a strong progressive negotiating position credibility – policies that allow the UK to lead by example, in other words.
In the continuous battle to achieve this some victories have been won. The long campaign to achieve a strong Climate Bill now looks likely to have achieved an emissions reductions target for 2050 being set at a less dangerous 80% rather than the clearly inadequate and potentially lethal 60% and the loophole that excluded aviation and shipping now seems to have been sealed, though the possibility of offsetting abroad still weakens the bill (see more here). Meanwhile the vigorous campaign against a third runway at Heathrow ( see here ) seems to have convinced the Tories to come out against it, with not enough time left within their current term for the government to go ahead ( but expansion is set to go ahead at Stanstead, the City and other airports - and increased use of existing runways at Heathrow is a possibility). The headlong rush towards biofuels meanwhile has slowed, or at least the most ambitious plans for expansion curtailed – in the face of outrage ( see here) against the destructive impact of agrofuels on forests, the climate and the world food supply – though immense and still increasing damage continues to be done. Finally the strong campaign against new coal ( see here) culminating in the Climate Camp at Kingsnorth may be paying off : its difficult to understand the import of the last government reshuffle but key Kingsnorth/new coal supporters like John Hutton and Malcolm Wicks have been moved sideways. The creation of a new government department combining climate change and energy just might mean that the government is going to put climate change rhetoric into energy-supply-transforming action.
It could just be that the dreadful immensity of the threat we face is beginning to percolate into the thick heads of politicians. But that cannot be taken for granted and neither can victory in any of these struggles alluded to – yet we know we can win, that some issues stand on a knife edge where enough pressure will make a difference. If we can get a really impressive number of people outside Parliament on December 6th – calling loudly for action on climate – it will make a difference. And we need to do this now especially because the financial/economic meltdown threatens to crowd out the climate issue ( never mind that global climate apocalypse remains global climate apocalypse, whatever happens to the global economy). What we really need is for the full potential of a department of climate change and energy to be realised with a revolution in the way we create energy. And if there is to be a recession then we need to see the energy revolution and the hundreds of thousands of green jobs it will bring as the way out of the recession (as well as, more importantly, a way of staving off climate catastrophe and therefore saving billions of lives !).
And the bigger global picture is such that we really need to win – here in the UK and elsewhere. The challenge we face is fantastically daunting – but we need to focus on the victories we can win – and the things we can do to make a difference. Creating a noisy, spectacular, and massive demonstration outside parliament on the Global Day of Action on climate on December 6th is one of them. And you can help us do that by being there.
The Campaign against Climate Change is pioneering a
Global Climate Campaign
Climate Protestors in Osasca, Brazil. See more pics of the Global Day of Action here
See more here.
CLIMATE EMERGENCY - read more here.