01 April 2009 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil —
We've got a message for the leaders of the
richest nations in the world who are gathering
in London for the G20 meeting to discuss
the global economic crisis.
Fifteen activists unfurled
this 50 meter (164 feet) x 30 meter (98
feet) banner from the bridge at the Guanabara
bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
We decided to send this
message from the birthplace of two of the
most important UN Conventions of modern
times, addressing climate change and biodiversity.
The huge wave of hope
created by the World Summit ECO-92 (better
known as the Earth Summit) in Rio -- that
all countries would work together to save
life on Earth -- has vanished. After 17
years without serious action by the world's
leaders to change the pattern of carbon-based
development, the planet is close to reaching
the point where runaway climate change cannot
be averted unless we act now.
Wasted opportunity
But will the G20 tackle the economic and
climate crises at the same time by greening
their economies? Unlikely.
Wealthy G20 nations
need to commit at least 1 percent of their
GDP to green measures, and the remaining
countries should do all they can to leapfrog
dirty carbon-based development and shift
to a renewable energy future.
The G20 leaders represent
three-quarters of global GDP, three-quarters
of energy consumption and three-quarters
of carbon emissions. So far, they appear
not to have grasped that their continuing
prosperity is not in conflict with preserving
the environment, but dependant upon it.
Crisis? You call THIS
a crisis?
In the long term, we
don’t face a choice of green jobs or dirty
jobs, but green jobs or ecological and social
collapse. Until climate change is at the
top of the G20 communiqué and at
the centre of their thinking, they aren’t
just scientifically illiterate, but economically
illiterate.
Science shows climate
change is accelerating. A full-blown climate
crisis raises the prospect of mass migration,
mass starvation and mass extinctions. It
will make poverty permanent in the developing
world and strangle growth in the developed.
The decisions the G20
leaders take will affect the 172 countries
not represented at this meeting, many of
which are both the poorest and most vulnerable
to the economic crisis and climate change.
The likely cost of climate
change impacts is up to 20 percent of global
output; more than the Great Depression and
both World Wars combined – in addition to
the human deaths and species extinctions,
according to former World Bank chief economist
Nicholas Stern.
Save forests to help
stop climate change
Developing countries
must also take responsibility to fight global
warming, and in particular those which host
tropical rainforests. Brazil and Indonesia
are the world’s fourth and third largest
greenhouse gas emitters due to forest destruction
in their countries.
According to the Brazilian
Institute of Space Research, which monitors
deforestation, close to 29 million hectares
of the Amazon rainforest have been destroyed
since the creation of the UN Climate convention
in Rio 92. This has added some 8 gigatons
of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Ending Amazon deforestation
is the major contribution Brazil can make
to help the world to tackle climate change.
Still, Brazil must take the leadership by
supporting the establishment of a funding
mechanism to stop forest clearance and associated
emissions, acknowledging the value of the
standing forests.
In Bonn, Germany, 129
countries representatives are meeting to
initiate a series of negotiations culminating
with the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December,
where a global deal to save the climate
must be agreed.
+ More
Spook scandal: the hidden
face of the nuclear industry
02 April 2009 - International
— Twenty-four years after the attack by
the French secret services against our ship
the Rainbow Warrior - which cost the life
of a Greenpeace photographer - the nuclear
industry is once again at the heart a major
spy scandal involving Greenpeace.
This time it is top
staff at nuclear energy giant Electricité
de France (EDF) that have been charged on
suspicion of spying on us.
So what spooked EDF? What worries them about
our efforts to reveal the hidden face of
the nuclear industry as being dangerous,
expensive and unnecessary?
It all began...
In 1971, ten activists
set off in a tiny boat to prevent a nuclear
blast planned by the United States. This
was Greenpeace's founding activity.
Throughout the world, we fight to expose
the risks presented by nuclear energy and
weapons, from radioactive waste transport
to waste management to the risk of accidents.
We also highlight that nukes are no answer
to climate change. "Clean and safe"
nuclear energy is a myth. People deserve
and are entitled to a transparent and democratic
debate on this.
The story in France
In France, Greenpeace
campaigns against EDF and French nuclear
company Areva, particularly the European
Pressurised Reactor (EPR) a third generation
reactor that is scheduled to be switched
on in 2012 in Flamanville, France.
In January 2009, following official confirmation
that Nicolas Sarkozy would build a second
EPR, we revealed evidence that waste from
this type of reactor would be seven times
more dangerous than the waste generated
by its predecessors.
Then in March of this year we made public
the facts about the latest Mixed-Oxide (MOX)
transport from France to Japan. The Areva
shipment contains 1.8 tons of plutonium
in the MOX - enough to make 225 nuclear
weapons, each more powerful than the bomb
that devastated Nagasaki.
This controversy started
three years earlier, in May 2006, when we
provoked the fury of the French government
by publishing online a classified document
showing the vulnerability of the Flamanville
reactor should an airplane hit it in an
accident or 9/11-style attack.
"By publishing
this document, Greenpeace played its role
as a whistleblower," said Pascal Husting,
executive director of Greenpeace France.
"As such, the work of our activists
should be protected by the state rather
than be monitored or attacked by private
companies!"
Independent and non-violent
When the French Government
infiltrated Greenpeace in 1985, their objective
was to derail our campaign against nuclear
weapons testing in the Pacific. Their plan
not only failed, it utterly backfired. The
public response around the world was outrage,
and in the end we won our campaign. Despite
being turned into a national pariah, Greenpeace
France not only survived, it came back stronger
than ever.
Greenpeace is built
on two fundamental values: independence
(both political & financial), and non-violence.
We are not supported by any political party,
do not endorse candidates and exist because
of the generosity of individuals who choose
to donate to us. This structural independence
is how we guarantee the freedom of speech
and action of the organisation, in all places
and under all circumstances.
Non-violence is a fundamental
element of all our activities. Based on
these fundamental values, we mobilize public
opinion and force decision-makers to address
problems that threaten the environment.
In France as in the
rest of the world, there's not a government
or a corporation which can keep Greenpeace
from being Greenpeace.
Source: Greenpeace International (http://www.greenpeace.org)
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