Climate change campaigning
World leaders missed a huge opportunity to agree a fair, ambitious and binding global climate deal at the 2009 Copenhagen summit. But climate change is still happening, and is still one of the biggest threats to the natural world – the planet’s life-support system – so it must be kept at the top of the world’s agenda.
World leaders are meeting in Cancun in November to discuss climate change – and we believe an agreement needs to be reached there on some key issues:
- how financial help will be given to developing countries so they can reduce their carbon emissions
- what to do about emissions resulting from deforestation
- what provisions will be made for helping people adapt to climate change impacts, and how these will be funded.
In Bonn in early June there was the first big meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change since Copenhagen. Some progress was made, but there still needs to be a basic change of attitude among some key players at the talks.
If the UK government wants to become the greenest government ever, it will need to show leadership and diplomacy. We particularly need them to promote EU emission reductions of 30% by 2020 (through action in the EU alone).
The UK can make sure the talks are fruitful by using its influence in the EU, which negotiates as a bloc, and in other international forums, so the world urgently gets on the right track to tackle climate change.
You can...
- Take action against a new and polluting coal power station in Scotland
- Email your MP asking them to support a green government
- Find out how your actions helped in Copenhagen, and what to do next
- See our summary of last December’s climate summit: Copenhagen – failure or stepping stone