Support The Protests For Climate Justices
Two shocking reports have revealed the hypocrisy of global leaders on climate change. They are due to meet in Glasgow in November as part of COP 26 to discuss how they will pull the world back from over-heating. According to the United Nations, the planet is already at 'code red’ and, if decisive measures are not taken, climate changes may become irreversible.
But another UN report, known as The Production Gap: 20-21 Report, shows how pledges made in the previous Paris accord in 2015 are not worth the paper they are written on.
At the Paris COP 21 Conference, 196 countries agreed to limit emissions to 2 degrees Celsius or preferably 1.5 degrees. Even a 1.50C increase would put the world on a dangerous path – but despite this, the government leaders did not make carbon reductions mandatory. It was just a voluntary aspirational agreement.
The Production Gap: 2021 Report, however, shows that governments plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5OC and 45% more fossil fuels than would be consistent with limiting warming to 20C. They refer to the gap between the planned increases and the pledges as 'the production gap’. It is widest for coal; in 2030 because there are plans which would lead to 240% more coal, 57% more oil and 71% more gas than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.50.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace has unearthed documents that show how fossil fuel producers including Australia, Saudi Arabia and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), are lobbying the IPCC – the world’s leading authority on climate change – to remove or weaken a key conclusion that the world needs to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.
Meanwhile, Brazil and Argentina, two of the world’s biggest producers of beef and animal feed, have been pressing to delete messages about the climate benefits of promoting 'plant-based’ diets and of curbing meat and dairy consumption.
These two reports show there is a total mismatch between the amount of talk about climate change and real action.
It also shows that the capitalist system is so hooked on profit, competition and expansion that it is incapable of tackling climate change. This is why so many people around the world will march on November 6th under the slogans 'System Change not Climate Change’.
In Ireland, the protests will take place at the following times and venues:
Belfast: Belfast City Centre, 12pm
Cork: City Library, Grand Parade, 12pm
Derry: Waterloo Place, 2pm
Dublin: Garden of Remembrance, 12pm
Galway: Spanish Arch, 12pm
Mayo: Market Square, Castlebar, 1pm
Sligo: Town Centre, 12pm
