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Hello All, (sorry if you already received this)
Here's your chance to do more about climate change...the PEI Eco-Net urges
you to take a minute to add your name to the list
of millions of other concerned citizens on this planet that are demanding
action on climate change. Visit
<http://www.climatevoice.org>http://www.climatevoice.org ! Thank you for
your support and please forward this message on.
Christine Jackson
Coordinator, PEI Eco-Net
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World Wildlife Fund Press Release
Cyber voices against climate change
22 August, 2000
Gland, Switzerland - As the days count down to November's crucial climate
summit in The Hague, a coalition of leading
environmental organizations today launched the first international
web-based initiative to give citizens around the world a
voice in demanding a halt to global warming.
The website www.climatevoice.org has been launched by 16 organizations,
including WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the
Earth. The site aims to send 10 million messages from the public to world
political leaders demanding that they use the
November summit to reduce the pollution that causes global warming.
"It is now 10 years since the international scientific community issued its
first warning about the threats the world faces from
climate change," said Andrew Kerr, of WWF's Climate Change Campaign.
"That's why we're aiming for 10 million messages
- one million for each year that governments have to failed to take action.
It is scandalous that available solutions to this
problem have been so thoroughly neglected."
In 1990, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued
its first scientific report on rising levels of
global warming gases and their implications for the future. Though impacts
characteristic of global warming have since
become increasingly evident on every continent and in most nations,
governments have failed to act to turn down the heat. On
the contrary, many of the leading polluters, such as the United States,
have allowed their emissions to increase while pressing
for effective international measures to be watered down.
"Climate change is increasingly touching all of our lives. Food production,
water supply, shelter, public health, disaster
relief, and nature protection - all of these will be in the firing line,"
said Roger Higman, Senior Campaigner with Friends of
the Earth. "We urgently need the intervention of top politicians to give
this problem the priority it deserves."
At www.climatevoice.org visitors can e-mail world leaders expressing their
concern about global warming. The first targets
on the site will be European Union Heads of State and Prime Ministers.
Visitors can also download a petition that can be
signed and sent off-line. They can then send a cyber postcard to friends
encouraging them to join the campaign. The site is
being launched in English today. Versions will follow in French, Spanish
and German.
At November's climate summit, officially the Sixth Conference of the
Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change, governments must meet their deadline for finalizing rules for
operating the Kyoto climate treaty - the only
international agreement for reducing emissions of global warming gases from
the industrialized world. Failing to agree in
November would make it questionable whether nations would be able to
achieve the Kyoto timetable for reducing emissions
in the coming decade. This would set the worst possible example for
stopping global warming in the 21st century.
"It's time world leaders recognized that the people who voted them in care
about a cleaner, safer future for their families,"
said Karl Mallon of Greenpeace's Climate Campaign. "People want action now
to combat global warming. November's
climate summit - the first of the 21st century - is the time for
politicians to show they listen."
For further information:
Andrew Kerr, WWF Climate Change Campaign. Tel: +31 6-5161-9462
Roger Higman, Senior Campaigner (Climate and Transport),
Friends of the Earth. Tel: +44 20 7566 1661
Karl Mallon, Climate Change Campaigner, Greenpeace International, Tel: + 31
20 523 6291
Notes to Editors:
1.Supporting organizations
The 16 organizations launching www.climatevoice.org are:
WWF, Greenpeace International, Friends of the Earth
International, Climate Action Network Australia (CANA),
David Suzuki Foundation, German NGO Forum on
Environment & Development (Forum Umwelt &
Entwicklung), HELIO International, EURONATURA, Ozone
Action, The Clean Air Network, Climate Solutions, The
Climate Alliance of European Cities with Indigenous
Rainforest Peoples (Klima-Buendnis/Alianza del Clima
e.V.), The Center for International Environmental Law, Save
Our World, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC),
and National Environmental Trust.
2.The call from the public Visitors to www.climatevoice.org
can sign on to the following text:
"I believe the pollution that causes global warming should
be
reduced. Otherwise the impacts could be devastating for
people and creatures around the world.
"I don't think we should be running these risks when
solutions
are at hand.
"Please use the opportunity of November's climate summit
in The Hague, Holland:
- to reduce your country's global warming pollution
- to agree a fair and effective Kyoto global warming treaty"
3.Kyoto climate treaty
The Kyoto climate treaty would require industrialized
countries to reduce their emissions of global warming gases
5 per cent below the level of 1990 by around 2010.
Environmental groups want the main polluters to use
November's climate summit to enact tougher domestic
measures. But if global warming is to be solved in coming
decades, all nations have a stake in ensuring the Kyoto
treaty provides a fair and effective international basis for
action. This depends on governments working to close
rather than exploit loopholes in the treaty that would allow
industrialized nations to meet their targets on paper
without
actually having to reduce emissions. Along with at least 60
nations, environmental organizations want to see an
effective treaty come into force no later than 2002.
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The preceding message was posted on the Sustainable Maritimes
mailing list (sust-mar). http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/lists/sust-mar
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