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ACTION CARD for January 2005

Climate Change

Climate change is the most complex and serious environmental challenge of the 21st century. There is now overwhelming evidence that Carbon Dioxide emissions are responsible for global warming.  Scientists state that:-

• People in the UK are responsible for emitting as much as 50 times more CO2 than people in the poorest countries. With the USA, Japan, Germany and Canada we are one of the five largest per capita emitters of CO2.

• But it will not be they who suffer most. Rather it will be those who are least to blame - and indeed they are already suffering. According to the Red Cross, by 2022 the costs of climatic disasters are expected to rise to a figure 10 times predicted aid flows.

• Sea levels are expected to rise by about a metre before 2100 International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), and to go on rising. A half a metre rise could create 92 million refugees in from low-lying coastlands and deltas, such as in Bangladesh (IFRC). The Pacific nation of Tuvalu is already abandoning its homeland because of rising seas.

• But there will also be implications for the UK. Over 1.8 million homes and potentially 5 million people are at risk from increased storm and flood damage. The cost of damage from adverse weather is rising 10% each year, while the world's economic growth, measured in Gross Domestic Product, is growing at 2.5%.

Action :-

The UK Government will make Climate Change one of the themes of the G8 Summit this year. Yet recently the government has stated that the UK may not achieve its own aspiration of a cut in emissions of 20% by 2010. Please write, or send an action card, to your MP welcoming the initiative with the G8 and urging this to be backed by a stronger lead in the UK. MPs could be asked to take matter up with the Secretary of State for Environment and to sign up to the Early Day Motion 282 ‘Targets for the Climate Change Review’.

A campaign, ‘Operation Noah’, is organised by Christian Ecology Link and endorsed by the Environmental Issues Network of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. ‘Operation Noah’ encourages concerned people to sign a climate covenant, commit to take action personally and raise this issue with MPs.

For further information:-

Operation Noah, www.christian-ecology.org.uk/noah, Tel. 01949 861516

ECO Congregation, www.ecocongregation.org, Tel. 02476 853061

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