Climate Change

The drought in Russia is devastating their harvest; Pakistan and China are suffering from massive floods triggered by exceptional rainfall; huge lumps are breaking off the Greenland icecap; and 2010 is heading to be the hottest year on record, globally. Climate change is happening and it's scary. Friends of the Earth is pressing for a binding climate treaty at the UN talks which are continuing after the fiasco of Copenhagen. The world climate justic movement is growing in strength, as was shown at the Mother Earth summit hosted by President Evo Morales in Bolivia a few months ago.

There will be a coordinated lobby of MPs on 5/6 November organised by the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, to win stronger policies in the UK. We will be part of this.

Is Tottenham at risk?

Floods threaten much of Tottenham: The Environment Agency released maps of areas at risk from flooding (see http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/) in 2004. They show that nearly all of Tottenham between the River Lea and the High Road North of Markfield Park could be flooded in severe conditions. This is a big increase on previous threatened areas. It brings home just how important it is to halt climate change and the extreme weather events it will trigger.

We've included here parts of the map showing Tottenham. To see if your home is at risk, download this map.

Climate Change is the biggest environmental threat to us all. Warmer weather sounds nice, but climate change is about more extremes, and hundreds of millions of poorer people across the world will be the losers, as storms, floods and droughts devastate their crops, deserts or rising sea levels cover their homes and farmland and food harvests collapse in key grain-growing areas.

Wildlife will lose out too - coral reefs, rainforests and cooler habitats could all disappear with the majority of the world's species.

Tottenham will be affected directly - as these pictures show, flooding affected parts of Tottenham along the River Lea in October 2000 and January 2003. Many more properties are at risk as weather patterns become more unpredictable and extreme. Storms and droughts will damage buildings, extreme heat-waves will make life uncomfortable, while new diseases may reach us.

FoE supported the Kyoto Treaty to reduce greenhouse gases which cause climate change as a first step, and we are delighted that it is now in legal force. But much bigger cuts in greenhouse gases of more than 60% worldwide are needed to prevent catastrophic change. Fortunately there are ways of doing this while improving people's quality of life. But it will need action by all of us and much stronger political will from our leaders - and that will only happen if we the people demand it.

Locally that means, for example:

• persuading our government to implement measures to meet the targets in the Climate Change Act, but also to up those targets to at least 42% by 2020
• pressing the Council to carry out its commitment to cut CO2 emissions locally by 40% by 2020
• cutting car use
• lobbying our MPs to support the Sustainable Livestock Bill to cut the CO2 emissions (and biodiversity loss) caused by our consumption of meat and airy products
• making sure that new developments are as close to carbon-neutral as possible.

Many of our actions on transport, energy and planning are ultimately about climate change - even recycling helps reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions - it's at the heart of all our work. Supporting our group and our actions is one way you can fight climate change. So is buying your electricity from a renewable electricity provider, such as: Ecotricity 121; freephone 08000 326 100, RSPB Energy 0845 7444 555, Good Energy 0845 456 1640