Tearfund Urges G8 Leaders to Take Action on Climate Change

|PIC1|Tearfund is urging G8 leaders to take concrete action on climate change, one year on from the mass mobilisation of poverty campaigners on 2 July 2005, which took place before the G8 meeting in Gleneagles last year.

The organisation welcomed the agreement made at the G8 Summit in 2005, where G8 leaders agreed to “help vulnerable communities adapt to the impact of climate change,” but one year on much less has been achieved than was hoped by many.

Although the World Bank has been tasked with developing a work programme that helps poor communities adapt to climate change, Tearfund claims that this is not enough, and that urgent action is needed on a global scale.

Rachel Roach, Tearfund’s climate change policy officer, says: “The G8 is making appallingly slow progress with helping vulnerable countries cope with climate change. Poor, rural farmers in Africa struggling to cope with drought are still struggling this year and will be next year. We have heard enough about talks - we want to see action”.

|TOP|In Ethiopia Tearfund Programme Support Advisor, Tadesse Dadi says: “A drought is currently affecting some 11 million people across the Horn of Africa, mainly due to four years of failed rains. We are helping people to adapt so they can continue with the way they have been doing things in the past. When the climate changes they don’t have enough resources to fall back on.”

Tearfund urges G8 Ministers to be bold and agree to concrete, measurable action at these meetings, both on helping countries adapt to climate change as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to avoid catastrophic climate change.

A series of high-level ministerial meetings will take place in September, leading up to the UN Conference on Climate Change in Kenya.

|AD|Following the Carbon Dating event which was organised by the Stop Climate Chaos coalition in the beginning of March, Tearfund has launched an online pentathlon to encourage people to combat climate change by living lives less harmful to the planet.

The games give practical tips on how to cut down on pollution and use less energy in a bid to slow down climate change at the individual level, such as turning the lights out in a busy office, recycling rubbish into the right containers, cycling to post a letter, promoting the use of cooler clothes washes and installing various energy efficiency devices at home.

In addition, the pentathlon encouraged people to sign up to the Stop Climate Chaos pledge. This assures the Prime Minister that the individual is taking action themselves to combat climate change and urges him to ensure greenhouse gas emissions are cut and more assistance is given to the developing world to reduce the impact of climate change.