25
Mar 2008 - Individuals witnessing the impacts
of climate change on their local environments
and communities encourage people around
the world to join the global Earth Hour
movement and switch off on 29 March 2008.
These “climate witnesses”
are sharing their stories with the WWF Climate
Witness Programme to demonstrate the present
and growing impact of climate change and
to push governments to act swiftly to curb
greenhouse gas emissions.
Penina Moce lives on
the remote Fijian island of Kabara in the
South Pacific. The island is seeing climate
change related impacts such as coastal erosion,
changing rainfall patterns and less fish
and garden crops. The accumulative impacts
are forcing many of the younger people on
the island to leave for the larger centers
of Fiji.
Moce said: “My island
doesn’t have electricity but uses generators;
we will support Earth Hour and turn off
the generators.”
Fiji is the only Pacific island country
to adopt Earth Hour and the lights will
be switched off in the capital Suva and
other major centers.
“I’m really proud that
my country, which was one of the first to
sign the Kyoto Protocol, will now be one
of the first countries to set off Earth
Hour. I think Earth Hour is important to
remind people in Fiji and the rest of the
world that we are all linked and we have
to work together to tackle climate change
even if we start small by just switching
off our lights.”
John Rumney is an ecotourism
operator on the Great Barrier Reef in northern
Queensland, Australia. In recent years Rumney
has witnessed significant coral bleaching
at several of his popular dive locations.
Coral bleaching is caused by stressful environmental
conditions, but primarily by warmer water
temperatures. The Reef is also under other
pressures including overfishing, and land-based
pollution, and these will be exacerbated
by climate change.
Rumney said: “The health
of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened
by water quality issues primarily from the
over-use of fertilisers and clearing of
native bush and wetlands. Yet these losses
on the reef are small compared to the damage
wrought by the world's changing climate.
“Our local environments
are all connected. It is a fundamental understanding
that it is not okay to dump your pesticides,
poisons or other waste in your neighbour's
back yard, just as it is not okay for a
society to dump greenhouse gases into the
world's atmosphere.
“Our family supports
Earth Hour and we hope it helps to build
awareness of what we can all do to be responsible
world neighbors.”
Nola Royce, is a personal
trainer and ice climber in Albany, New York
in northeastern US, has noticed a significant
decline in ice and snow cover since she
first started climbing in the early 1970s.
Royce said: “When I
travel, I don't check email and I don't
care what's going on in the world beyond
my surroundings. It's really quite nice.
Turning off the lights is a similar practice.
Doing things by candle light would be most
pleasant, and romantic — given the right
company.
“I imagine it would
be dramatic if we turned the lights off
more than once year. Perhaps this is a practice
many of us could do occasionally and see
what fun stuff we could conjure up to do
during that dark and rather ‘enlightened’
hour.”
Elders in northern Sweden
have also noticed considerable changes in
the snow conditions, according to Nicole
and Christoph Müller, a German couple
living in Jämtland County, Northern
Sweden.
The region recently
experienced its warmest winter since measurements
began 108 years ago. Link
"We believe Earth
Hour is a great way to raise the awareness
of this global threat,” said Nicole Müller.
“People are not aware enough about the impact
that millions of household appliances such
as stereos and TV's have — even when they
are left on standby.”
Christoph Müller
said: “This electricity can be saved and
therefore save tonnes of CO2 and pollution
from power plants. It is one step toward
lowering the impact of global warming."
Gregory Norminton, a
writer living in southeast England has witnessed
hotter, drier summers and wetter, milder
winters in recent years. Deadly heat waves
and massive flooding have been the outcomes.
Norminton said: "The
Sydney event was noticed around the world.
As citizens of one planet, let's send a
message to business and governments that
we demand urgent action to tackle global
climate change."
Claire Carlton
Manager, WWF Climate Witness Programme
Nigel Allan
Communications Manager, WWF Climate Witness
Programme
END NOTES
• Cities around the world including: Atlanta,
San Francisco, Phoenix, Bangkok, Ottawa,
Vancouver, Montreal, Dublin, Sydney, Perth,
Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide,
Copenhagen, Aarhus, Aalborg, Odense, Manila,
Suva, Chicago, Tel Aviv, Toronto and Christchurch
will switch off for Earth Hour on Saturday
March 29, at 8pm local time.
• For more information on the WWF Climate
Witness Programme and to view a map of the
latest witnesses go to: www.panda.org/climatewitness.
The full testimonials of these Climate Witnesses
can be found here:
- Penina Moce (www.panda.org/climatewitness/moce)
- John Rumney (www.panda.org/climatewitness/rumney)
- Nola Royce (www.panda.org/climatewitness/royce),
- Nicole and Christoph Müller (www.panda.org/climatewitness/muller),
- Gregory Norminton (www.panda.org/climatewitness/norminton)
+ More
UN Climate Change Talks
Bangkok, 31 March to 4 April 2008
27 Mar 2008 - Background:
Last year, Indonesia hosted the 13th session
of the Conference of the Parties to the
UNFCCC (COP13) in Bali (from 3 to 14 December).
The Bali conference reacted to the overwhelming
scientific evidence of global warming, set
out in the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC),which put the reality of human-induced
global warming beyond any reasonable doubt.
Governments decided
on a Bali mandate, which compels them to
agree on a new climate deal by December
2009 that will cover the issues of emission
reductions, mitigation, adaptation, finance,
technology and forests. However, the Bali
meeting agreed only on the broad strokes
of the topics that the negotiations should
cover, and avoided specifics.
Key Issues:
The UN Climate Talks in Bangkok – the first
meeting after the Bali conference – is about
developing an ambitious timetable to complete
the complex negotiations on a new climate
deal in time for the UN Climate Conference
in Copenhagen in December 2009. “Bangkok
is all about getting the timing, rhythm
and focus of the negotiations right,” said
Kathrin Gutmann, Climate Policy Coordinator,
WWF International. “Governments need to
enshrine the spirit of Bali in a workplan
that reflects the ambition to achieve deep
emission cuts in the next 10 to 15 years.”
The Bangkok workplan
has to address the questions of financing,
technology cooperation, adaptation, and
mitigation in North and South head on. “The
Bangkok talks will be the first test to
see if the governments in Bali negotiated
in earnest,” said Kathrin Gutmann. “Governments
must not shy away from the politically difficult
questions in the negotiations.”
The urgency of
taking action against climate change is
undisputed. “The least developed countries
have made it very clear – they are already
feeling the heat, and they find it unbearable,”
said Diane McFadzien, Climate Policy Coordinator
for Asia-Pacific. “The Bangkok talks must
set out speedy and productive negotiations,
and plan how to overcome obstacles and road
blocks.”
Experts:
Several WWF experts on specific issues such
as adaptation, carbon markets, forests,
and on specifc countries (including Brazil,
India, Poland, US, Germany) are attending
the conference. Please contact them through
the media contacts.
Martin Hiller, WWF Global Climate Change
Programme (English, German, French)
