Tearfund and 10 other agencies today called upon President Bush to support a UN climate agreement at an energy and climate summit opening today in Washington. In a letter published in The Guardian newspaper, they write:
Dear President Bush
As you meet today for the Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change, we write to urge you to send a clear message that negotiations on a post-2012 global deal must be launched at the UN Climate Change Summit in December.
We are UK-based development and environment NGOs working in the developing world with communities and habitats already facing devastating impacts of climate change. The latest scientific evidence highlights that these impacts are going to get much worse. It could not be clearer that a more ambitious global response is urgently needed that cuts greenhouse gas emissions drastically to keep warming below 2 degrees C, and helps poor people adapt.
It is vital that the Washington meeting does not act as a diversion from the ongoing UN climate change talks where the voices of developing countries and vulnerable communities can be heard. Instead it must urge negotiators to ramp up efforts towards a speedy agreement, by 2009, on a binding regime for post-2012 measures.
Yours sincerely
Matthew Frost, Chief Executive, Tearfund
Barbara Stocking, Director, Oxfam GB
Ian Leggett, Director, People & Planet
Benedict Southworth, Director, World Development Movement
John Sauven, Executive Director, Greenpeace UK
Daleep Mukarji, Director, Christian Aid
Tony Juniper, Executive Director, Friends of the Earth (England, Wales & Northern Ireland)
David Nussbaum, Chief Executive, WWF UK
Fay Mansell, Chair, National Federation of Women’s Institutes
The UK Government must show strong leadership to ensure that current trade negotiations between Europe and developing countries is fair and does not undermine development, church leaders have stated. In a letter published in the Times, the Christian leaders, including Tearfund President Rev Dr Elaine Storkey, write:
Sir,
Current trade negotiations between the EU and some of the world’s poorest countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) should result in trade agreements that help to bring about justice. In fact they threaten to undermine recent progress towards making poverty history.
Negotiations on economic partnership agreements (EPAs) were launched five years ago today, with the aim of determining future trade relations between the two regions by the end of 2007. These agreements were specifically meant to be development-friendly.
However, what is currently on the table is far from this. The European Commission, on behalf of the EU, is offering what are essentially free-trade agreements between very unequal partners.
The UK Government has previously taken a pro-development stance on EPAs. As Christian leaders, we are compelled to action by a biblical understanding of justice as taking the side of the poor and oppressed. As the deadline approaches, we join church leaders from Europe and Africa in urging the Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander, to show leadership again.
We urge the Government to do all it can to ensure that EPAs do not force ACP countries to open their markets prematurely or to accept issues they have previously rejected in other trade negotiations, and to make sure they will be no worse off if EPAs are not signed by the end-of-year deadline.
the right Rev Michael Langrish, lord bishop of exeter, member of the board of christian aid, on behalf of:
the Rev Martyn Atkins, president of the methodist conference
the Rev Jonathan Edwards, general secretary of the baptist union of great britain
the right Rev John Gladwin, lord bishop of chelmsford, chair, christian aid
the Rev prof Stephen Orchard, moderator of the general assembly of the united reformed church
the Rev Joel Edwards, general director, the evangelical alliance
Elaine Storkey, tearfund president
and 11 others