Climate Change is the most serious threat facing the world to today. Without urgent action being taken against it the consequences will be horrific.

Therefore Globalise Resistance is calling for:

An end to Blair’s undermining of the Kyoto Agreement.While the Kyoto Agreement is nowhere near radical enough it is a start and to attempt to weaken it, as Blair has been doing, is criminal. At the moment Britain is not on track to either deliver it’s Kyoto target of a 12.5 per cent reduction below 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2012, let alone it’s self imposed target of a cut of 20 per cent by 2010. Pollution has in fact risen since Labour came to power.
Blair to full-heartedly support negotiations for a new climate change agreement with compulsory targets. The British Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, is currently drawing up plans for a new treaty to come into force when the Kyoto Agreement ends in 2012. At present Blair is saying that he is not hopeful about another major agreement on targets to reduce climate change. Once again he is following the lead of the US and claiming that the solution to climate change lies in developing new technology. This viewpoint is strenuously disputed by environment groups and even by Blair’s own Climate Change Minister who has said that technology led solutions are “not a…substitute for internationally agreed targets and actions.”
An end to the occupation of Iraq. The war in Iraq was and is being fought for oil. If the amount of money spent on securing and safeguarding oil supplies and cleaning up oil pollution was invested in sustainable energy and public transport the world would be a much better place.
An end to the belief that the free market can end climate change. The personification of free trade, NAFTA, refuses to accept environmental controls at all as it believes goods should be stripped of all social and moral context. Companies need to be regulated, offering them incentives alone to cut emissions, as Blair is suggesting, is not good enough. Unless forced to businesses will not deviate in the pursuit of profit, even when people’s survival is at stake. Major energy consumers will not willingly cut down on their emissions. We need only look at the lengths to which Esso went to prevent Bush signing up to Kyoto and, in Britain, at the way that the Confederation of British industry successfully lobbied the government to increase the amount of carbon it is allowed to emit under the European Emissions trading scheme. Globalise Resistance sees the same flaws in carbon trading as in the free market in general. It is the rich nations buying the right to pollute the world just as they always have done.
An end to the subsidies paid to the coal, oil and nuclear industries and the money instead invested in renewable energy sources. Tax-payers money should not be spent on polluting the environment and providing profits for shareholders. Instead the government should invest the money in researching and funding clean and efficient energy from renewable sources, which at the same time would create new jobs. In another example of the free market’s inefficiency, when the energy market was deregulated in Britain, the combined heat and power plants, which increase efficiency and reduce emissions, were sidelined and are now in decline. They should instead be encouraged.
An end to unnecessary flights. In Europe most flights are short distance, under 1000km, mainly business trips and weekend breaks. These flights could easily be replaced by fast trains. Aviation fuel is at present untaxed which according to Friends of the Earth means that “each year the aviation industry in the European Union receives over 45 billion in tax concessions and other subsidies”. This means air companies can afford to offer incredibly cheap flights which the train companies cannot compete with. Subsidise the railways to the same extent that aviation has been and we will have the choice of cheap and far less polluting ways of travelling. Were everyone, as part of better working conditions, also given adequate holiday leave we would also be able to afford the time to travel and not have to take the quickest possible route to get the maximum out of our short time off.
An increase in the road tax for energy inefficient vehicles such as four by fours.These are not only very polluting but also highly dangerous for pedestrians.
Regulation to ensure all new buildings are built to strenuous environmental targets and public funding to bring existing buildings up to the same standard. Social housing especially should to be forced to meet high standards of insulation and other energy efficiency. Not only would this cut down on emissions it would also prevent the thousands of deaths every year of people too poor to afford to heat their poorly insulated homes. Last year the Labour government rejected amendments to the Housing Bill which would have forced social housing to be more energy efficient - they said it would be too expensive.
A massive investment in environmentally friendly public transport and no more new road construction. At present our public transport system is in a pitiful state. Privatisation has failed leaving poor service and exorbitant ticket prices for those who can least afford it. All public transport services should be completely re- nationalised. If we had cheap and efficient public transport far less people would choose to drive everywhere and there would be no need for new road projects. Instead of spending billions on arms manufacture we could spend it on public transport. Let our arms factories build trams instead of tanks. Companies should be both forced and encouraged to transport goods in a more environmentally friendly manner than by air and road. A good rail system would help with this.
We support the Campaign Against Climate Change’s call for mass action and believe that a movement even larger than that opposing the war is necessary to combat the threat of climate change.
Demonstrate Central london and cities across the world on Saturday 4 November 2006 Come to the Campaign against Climate Change annual conference Saturday 3 June 2006 www.campaigncc.org