arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Three week ago, the World's media reported on the findings of the United Nations' Panel on Climate Change and their prediction that average global temperatures will rise between one and a half and six degree centigrade over the next 1OO years. This is about double the range scientists estimated in 1996. People have underestimated their impact on the natural world and the most authoritative body on the greatest challenge facing humanity has issued a dire warning.

The planet is heating up, driven by our dependency on fossil fuels. By burning oil and coal and by not acting against massive deforestation around the world we have released billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Now we can predict that even the best case scenario of only 1,5 degrees warming comes true, serious consequences will result - both for the human economy and the natural world. If temperatures really rise by 6 degrees during this century, the consequences can be expected be quite simply catastrophic. And while nothing is more difficult to predict than the future, it is cleare that events in the present should provide sufficient reason for decisive and effective action.

The science tell us that the World is entering a period of unprecedented environmental change.
Unprecedentend in scale und unprecedented in speed. Recently, people have witnessed record breaking forest firesm floods droughts and storms - many of them the most intense ever witnessed. These disasters have brought misery to millions and caused economic chaos across the world. And such dramas have been accompanied by the revelation that the Arctic ice cap has thinned by 40 per cent in the last three decades. The Greenland ice sheet is melting and glaciers are fast retreat in all parts of the world. These signals echo the scientific predictions and tell us that failure to take action now will condemn our world to biological impoverishment and threaten the lives and livelihoods of billions of people.

The comming week in the Hague may prove to be one of the most important in the three and half billion year history of life on Earth. Succes next week would be marked by a robust and tight agreement that immediately initiates the start of the nescessary phase out of fossil fuels as our principal energy source. It would highligt that our destructive and wateful ways must end and establish the legally binding rules that will lead to changes in our relationship with the planet that supports us. Failure will be seen in the protection of the right of the rich to pollute at the expense of the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable.

What happend in this conference center during the last week has show us that many Governents have not woken up to the challenge. They are not facing up to climate change but make every attempt to hide behind "national circumstances" and "political realities at home" to shy away from committing to real change. And whatever the outcome next week, it is guaranteed that the wrangling inside the conference centre will be dominated by technical detail, legal arguments and protection of so called economic growth. What will not be discussed is morality, responsibility and global equity. The moral responsibility of the well of those who will suffer most, the moral responsibility of informed people to act as stewards of a diverse planet and the moral responsibility to protect our world for the benefit of future generations.

The thousands gatherend here today are but a tiny minority of the millions of people world wide who now demand action to avert catastrophic damage to our planet. This meeting here in the Hague must deliver the goods . We must not see rich Governments trying to use trees and soils as an excuse to do absolutely nothing to reduce fossil fuel consumption at home and we must not see dirty technologies or even nuclear power being dumped on developing countries.
Thee is no place for any o this in a treaty that aims to save the global climate. What must be archieved is the foundation of a renewable and efficient energy economy that benefits everyone.

If Governments fail herem their credibility will be seriously damaged. They will be exposed as being in the pocket of business, concerned only with their short term national economic interests and electoral prospects. Our message is simple - we must witness here real leadership and as a result outcomes that will reduce the emissions of gases that are warming our world. The time for action is now, and het whole world is watching

Tony Juniper

Vice Chair
Friends of the Earth International