The Global Picture

Delegates at COP27 in Egypt last month reached a historic deal to set up a “loss and damage” fund to compensate those countries, primarily in the Global South, who have done the least to cause climate breakdown but who are being impacted the most by the damage of increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather patterns and conditions.  However, this significant and long overdue commitment is completely undermined by the ongoing lack of agreement of all governments to phase down ALL fossil fuels. Without this, the efforts to stay below 1.5C will be beyond our reach, given that global tipping points are now being reached.  

To put this in perspective, back in May 1992 when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was formed, 178 member states unanimously agreed to bring CO2 emissions down to 1990 levels of 354 parts per million (ppm) by 2000. Since then annual emissions have climbed 65% and now stand at 420 ppm (levels stood at 280 ppm in the pre-industrial era).

And so the fight for climate justice and climate stability goes on.  According to Carbon Brief "Tuvalu also became the first country in the world to endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, which aims to trigger a global fossil-fuel phase-out through the establishment of an international treaty, in a similar way to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.".  You can endorse this campaign as an organisation or individual via the above weblink.  We shall watch this development with interest.

Meanwhile in Shropshire….We Clanged for COP27

On Saturday 12th November environmental groups across Shropshire Clanged for COP27 as part of a Global Day of Action organised by the Global Justice Coalition to raise the alarm about the Climate and Ecological Emergency.  Gatherings took place in Wem, Market Drayton and Ironbridge where drums and saucepans were clanged and bells were rung to demand world leaders take climate action and provide financial support to the global south for the climate related damage they are facing.