Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

Demonstration on Climate Change, London December 8!

by Terry Conway  |  Socialist Resistance no48  |  page 20

This is scanned newsprint, not web text. The original PDFs carried no text layer at all, so every word here was read off the page by OCR. Expect dropped opening letters, run-together words and wrong characters. There was no contents page to cut the paper up by, so the articles were found from the size of their headlines: a headline may carry its kicker, and where an article ran beside a boxed panel a few lines of the neighbour can appear. The scanned issue is the authority; this text is here so the words can be found at all.

George Bush convened a special Conference on Climate Change in Washington, on September 28-29 in a transparent attempt to pre-empt and derail the official UN Talks in Bali this December. Us activists organised actions in Washington and elsewhere to highlight the cynicism of the President

Anger, frustration and determination are growing across the globe at the lack of progress in dealing with this threat to humanity's survival. The countdown begins to worldwide protests on climate on December 8 as a worldwide movement for action on Climate Change gathers pace.

December 8 was chosen because it is the Saturday midway through the Ball talks. The protests will demand that world leaders take urgent action to prevent the catastrophic • 8. destabilisation of global climate, from Dhaka to Cochabamba, from Beirut to Johannesburg and from Ankara to Ottawa. This is not to mention Bali itself, where a huge mobilisation is expected on the day.

Phil Thornhill of the Campaign against Climate Change in the UK, speaking on behalf of the "Global Climate Campaign', said

"Bush's climate conference is a transparent attempt to divert the world down the blind ally of 'aspirational goals' and "intensity targets', before the UN can make serious progress on absolute and binding targets at the official Talks in Bali this December.

"But people all round the world - many of who stand to suffer enormously from Bush's delaying tactics and the failure of world leaders to act decisively on climate - are coming together in a rapidly

growing global -00, movement to

force world leaders to action fast - before it becomes too late." In Britain, the campaign is gearing up to ensure a sizeable turnout.

A lively London meeting in September wanted to ensure that if there is a general election between now and December we ensure that climate change stays at the top of the political agenda by organising hustings where we can put candidates on the spot.

Socialist Resistance readers should be doing everything they can to ensure their trade unions are well and visibly represented on December 8 as well as building for February's conference.