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Let's be friendsBrown tells People & Planet: 'don't stop with COP, keep fighting'
On Monday, People & Planet members met Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown to find out why the UN climate change talks ended on 19 December with a weak Copenhagen Accord brokered by the USA and a handful of powerful countries.
World leaders left Copenhagen with an agreement which is unfair, unambitious and not legally binding. Developing countries were left out of the discussion and the outcome was, in the words of the Sudanese negotiator, like asking “Africa to sign a suicide pact”.
No one is trying to pretend it was a success. Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the COP-15 meeting as “at best flawed, at worst chaotic” but he had encouraging words for campaign groups like People & Planet, he said we have “inspired the world, challenged the world, changed the world”. He commented that the massive displays of popular support for a fair deal demonstrated at events like The Wave were essential to the progress that had been made.
Find out how People & Planet’s climate change campaigns can bring positive change beyond Copenhagen.
The ‘progress’ he referred to is not very obvious in the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ agreed last week. The deal accepts that keeping global temperature rises below two degrees celsius is a good idea in theory but it does not set out targets to make this happen. The rich countries, who have most responsibility for causing climate change, have failed to commit to big enough cuts in emissions or sufficient funds to help the poor countries that are already suffering the harsh effects of climate change like drought, disease, flooding and mass migration.
But Brown’s message was positive, young people and civil society as a whole must “keep fighting” because what we do now will be “remembered for decades.”
Fighting talk but does he mean it? Many young people who went to Copenhagen to make their call for climate justice heard were ignored and suffered at the hands of the police, four Greenpeace activists will be spending Christmas in Danish jails. The UK youth delegates were shut out of the conference mid-way through the negotiations to make way for leaders and their entourages. When challenged on this at a meeting on Monday Miliband said he would consider giving young people a role on the official UK delegation to stop that happening in future.
Brown is right on one thing, world leaders have missed a chance to take worldwide action on climate change which means it’s now up to us to demonstrate what the future can look like. By campaigning for emissions cuts in schools, colleges and universities we’re showing the rest of the world it can be done and getting the UK’s house in order.
Find out more about how People & Planet’s climate change campaigns can bring positive change beyond Copenhagen – the futures in our hands.
Read more about the outcome of Copenhagen.
