Saturday, December 3, 2011

The Campaign against Climate Change held a march and rally in London today to coincide with the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa. The headline message of this demonstration was that 50% of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by the richest 7% of people, but that the poorest 50% of people cause only 7% of emissions.

The playlist below contains 9 clips of the full speeches at the rally.

Or you could watch the 10-minute digest... (scroll down some more for photos)

The protestors marched from Blackfriar's Bridge to a rally in a square opposite the Houses of Parliament, where they were addressed by speakers who brought the latest news from a whole spectrum of climate campaigns. The promotion of biofuels as a false alternative to fossil fuels, reining in aviation growth, and the dangers of exploiting new fossil fuel sources such as tar sands, are all still on the agenda, but new developments are afoot too.

The technique of fracking (hydraulic fracturing), drilling into methane-bearing shale rock and then pumping a mixture of chemicals and water down the hole at high pressure to fracture the rock and release the methane, has come under intense scrutiny in the past year.

Links were also drawn with other recent events. The Occupy movement, which started as Occupy Wall Street and has since spread to many other locations worldwide, recognises that many of us have for years been campaigning on issues (climate change, war, poverty, social justice and so on) which are all symptoms of the same fundamental problem. The public sector strikes on 30th November were also mentioned, ordinary people who had never before taken part in any form of protest taking action against their pension funds being used to bail out the financial and economic system which is at the heart of the problem.

The rally was concluded with a reminder of the Zero Carbon Britain 2030 report, a rigorous study of how the UK could become carbon neutral by 2030 without a drastic reduction in our standard of living.

Some photos from the day...