European Citizens summit attendees call upon leaders to increase climate action at New York Climate Summit.
On the morning of the UN Climate Summit in New York [1], hundreds of people attending the European Citizens Summit [2] in Brussels have sent messages calling for their governments to ramp up action on climate change.
Climate Action Network Europe (CAN Europe) and Friends of the Earth Europe offered people attending the summit the opportunity to send their ‘Climate Asks’ to the Ban Ki-moon Summit. Many concerned people wrote strong messages, demanding urgent climate action from their heads of state or government who are due to meet today at the UN in New York.
The pictures have been circulating online via the hashtag #MyClimateAsk.
The messages uniformly called for immediate, concrete and ambitious action from the talks: “SERIOUSLY, Do Something ”, read one; “concrete action! No progress reports!” read another. Others called on world leaders to “stop funding fossil fuels”, and called for the EU to adopt binding 40% energy efficiency targets for 2030.
“European citizens are worried about climate change and want our leaders to act. The New York Summit is the opportunity for our governments to live up to the expectations of the European public. We want to hear new plans to increase renewable energy, lower energy consumption, reduce the use of fossil fuels and expand financial support to climate action in poor countries,” said Wendel Trio Director of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe.
“This summit is a moment for the EU to signal increased ambition in the run-up to October’s EU Council on 2030 targets. It would be embarrassing for its weak and ineffective proposal on emission reductions, energy savings and renewables targets to be presented in front of so many world leaders in New York,” said Susann Scherbarth, Climate and Energy Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.
The action follows on from the global People’s Climate March, which saw the largest ever mobilization of people calling for governments and polluters to stop blocking the urgent action required to halt catastrophic climate change. More than 400,000 people took to the streets of New York, while more than 2000 people marched in Brussels on Sunday. Marchers have signaled this is as the beginning of a growing public movement away from a fossil fuelled economy.
Photos can be viewed here: https://caneurope.org/2014-02-26-12-55-45/my-climate-ask – 23 and via the @FoEEurope and @CANEurope Twitter accounts.
Notes
[1] The UN Climate Summit has been organised by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. It is intended to increase political momentum ahead of December 2015 when a new international climate agreement will be signed at the UN climate negotiations in Paris.
[2] The European Citizens Summit is an annual conference organised by the EU Civil Society Contact Group, aiming to envision a Europe for and from citizens. The Civil Society Contact Group (CSCG) brings together eight large rights and value based NGO sectors. Jointly we organise the second edition of the Summit in September 2014. This event will address Europe’s growth obsession and create a space for citizens to discuss an alternative vision of Europe. http://citizenssummit.eu/
Contacts
Matthew Keys, Communications Coordinator at CAN Europe, matthew@caneurope.org, +32 497 700 372
Susann Scherbarth, Climate and Energy Campaigner Friends of the Earth Europe, susann.scherbarth@foeeurope.org, +32 486 34 18 37
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