Archived press release

Prime Minister's warm words on climate change leave campaigners looking for action

28 February 2006

Stop Climate Chaos met this morning with the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and told him that current UK policies fall far short of the necessary action to avert disaster. Tony Blair summarised the Government's current policies on climate change in the meeting and in an open letter to the coalition, of which Friends of the Earth is a founder member.

During the meeting, which also included Chancellor Gordon Brown, Secretary of State for the Environment Margaret Beckett and Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn, Tony Blair announced that the long-overdue Climate Change Programme Review would be published next month. Stop Climate Chaos looks forward to the Review but says it can accept nothing less than a big, bold plan to reduce UK carbon emissions. In particular, the coalition calls on the Government to establish a UK Carbon Budget to deliver an average reduction in total UK carbon emissions of 3% per year.

Stop Climate Chaos was surprised that Tony Blair failed to mention in the letter that the global temperature rise must be kept below the widely accepted danger threshold of 2C (already an agreed EU target), and that this will require global greenhouse gas emissions to be on a permanent downward path by 2015. The coalition called on the Prime Minister to do all he can on the international stage to cap global warming at 2C.

Regarding the increasingly damaging impacts that climate change is having on people living in poor countries, Stop Climate Chaos reminded the Prime Minister that the UK has unfulfilled pledges to make funds available to help poor countries cope with and adapt to climate change.

Worryingly the Prime Minister appears, yet again, to be sidelining the Kyoto process for dealing with climate change. We strongly believe this process should be supported as the most viable mechanism for delivering international agreement to reduce global green gas emissions.

Stop Climate Chaos will report back on the meeting at Number 10 to supporters gathering at a `Carbon Dating' event happening on Wednesday 1^st which Leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Menzies Campbell and Margaret Beckett are all intending to attend. This is just the beginning of what will be a massive, unmissable public campaign.

Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos Director, says "We told the Prime Minister that urgent and comprehensive action is needed to avert climate chaos. This must begin by setting an annual carbon budget for the UK to drive down emissions in every sector."

Notes

• www.stopclimatechaos.org.

• The Stop Climate Chaos `Carbon Dating' event takes place at Methodist Central Hall from 2-4pm Wednesday March 1^st.

• Stop Climate Chaos was launched in September 2005 and is calling on the government for:

  • Action in the UK: Establish a Carbon Budget that cuts emissions by 3 per cent year on year which covers all sectors of the economy, and uses all the tax, incentive and regulatory tools at its disposal to ensure the target is met.

  • Action internationally: Make it a top priority to ensure that global greenhouse gas emissions are irreversibly declining by 2015.

  • Action for justice: Provide all necessary assistance to developing countries to both adapt to climate change and in the longer term get access to sufficient clean energy to meet their developmental needs.

• The growing coalition contains most of the UK's leading environmental and international development organisations as well as women's organisations, activist groups and faith-based campaigns: Airport Watch, BMS world Mission, CAFOD, Campaign against Climate Change. Centre for Alternative Technology , Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Islamic Foundation for Ecology & Environmental Sciences, Medact, Operation Noah, Oxfam, People and Planet, Practical Action, Road Block, RSPB, Save our World, Sustrans, Tearfund, The Wildlife Trusts, Take Global Warming Seriously, Transport 2000, National Foundation of Women's Institutes, Woodland Trust, World Development Movement and WWF.

• All of us can do something to help and many millions already are.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust