Politicians talk, leaders act!
On the evening of the first day of Russia-US summit being held in the Kremlin, we reminded Presidents' Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama of their responsibility to take leadership in agreeing plans to avert catastrophic climate change. Our activists used a laser projector to create a call to action visible from President Obama's hotel: "Leaders Act! Save Climate!"
Russian roulette?
We are demanding that Medvedev and Obama quit gambling with our future and take personal responsibility preventing runaway climate change and the massive social and environmentaldisaster that would ensue. We're asking them to personally attend theUN Climate Summit in December and to guarantee a good deal for the climate.
To avoid catastrophicclimate change, developed countries must reduce their greenhouse gasemissions by 40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels and lower themas close to zero as possible by 2050. But, both Russian and the USemission plans are far from what is required to solve the problem.Currently Washington has planned cuts amounting to only 14 percent oftheir current level by 2020. And, in Russia, by 2020, the volume ofgreenhouse emissions would actually increase by a dangerous 36 percentfrom their current level.
At their first meeting in April this year, the Presidents of Russia andthe US agreed to open a new page in their relationship.Tackling climate change must be on that page. We welcome any progresson nuclear disarmament during this meeting. But, the planet faces anadditional human made threat - climate change. We must not only end thethreat of a nuclear winter but avertcatastrophic global warming at the same time.
Ice, ice Sarkozy?
Early this morning, Greenpeace activists in France were highlightingthe climate crises by floating a life-sized mock iceberg on the RiverSeine towards the Eiffel tower. They also gave a clear message toPresident Sarkozy and his counterparts by holding banners at the foot of the iceberg, stating "Sarkozy: climate leadership now" and "G8: climate leadership now". With onlyfive months to the UN Climate Summit, the G8 countries need to committo serious and bindingemission cuts.
The average global temperature is increasing todangerous levels due tothe release of hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into theatmosphere over the past two and a half centuries. Ice shelves arecollapsing, glaciers are shrinking and sea levels are rising. Withoutstrongmeasures from the G8 heads of state to keep temperature rise as farbelow 2 degrees Celcius as possible we will see mass migration, mass extinctions and mass starvation.
The clean energy and efficiencytechnologies needed to reduce emissions already exist and the world hasenough financial resources to switch to these technologies. But themain block is the sheer lack of political will.
A million climate saving jobs
Ata time of economic recession, G8 leaders are clearly reluctant to makedramatic changes. But, one million more jobs would be created in G8countries by 2020 if the leaders of these wealthy countries agreed toswitch from coal and other climate-destroying conventional energy sources to renewables, in order to help slash carbon emissions and avoid a climate catastrophe.
Our latest Energy [R]evolution research shows that this bold move would provide one million jobs in renewablesalone -- 460,000 more jobs in the energy sector than would be availableif they stay on the business as usual carbon-intensive path. This wouldcut power-related C02 emissions by 50 percent by 2030. The quickest wayto get people back to work, kick-start sustainable economic growth isclear, G8 leaders must tackle the twin crises of global economicrecession and climate change together. Continuing prosperity depends onpreserving the environment and tackling climate change. It is not achoice of green jobs or dirty jobs, but green jobs or ecological andsocial collapse.
Watch this space
All eyes will beon the G8 summit this week - and we have policy advisers there toreport back on how the meeting unravels. Meanwhile, in the Arctic, ourscientific expedition team has already come across disturbing signs ofaccelerating climate change. Our ship, Arctic Sunrise, is in the NaresStrait, an area that is normally covered in ice until August, butalready it is free of ice. In the words of one of the scientists onboard, Dr Jason Box, it is "unprecedented that in an area of 450 km of open water we haven't even bumped into a single ice flow."
We'realso documenting the impacts of climate change in the Pacific whereanother one of our ships, Esperanza, is on a tour of the Cook Islands,Samoa and Vanuatu. Both of these ship tours are highlighting the urgent need for world leaders to act now: to take personal responsibility for tackling climate change and guaranteeing a good deal for the climate in Copenhagen this December.