The Daily Mail reports, “Australia and Canada have invited the UK to join an alliance of ‘like-minded’ nations to limit action on climate change. The two countries have each rolled back green policies in recent months, and want others to join them to resist a legally-binding international deal on carbon emissions. …[Abbott] said efforts are underway to form a new ‘centre-right’ alliance including Britain, as well as India and New Zealand. Climate change is due to move up the political agenda in the coming months, with a United Nations summit on climate action planned for September, to be hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It will lay the groundwork for a legally-binding global deal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to be agreed in Paris in December 2015.”
The next United Nations climate summits will take place this December in Lima, Peru and then, as noted above, the following year in France (just shortly after the October 19, 2015 federal election in Canada). The New York Times editorial board has commented, “If the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report is to be taken seriously, as it should be, the Paris meeting may well be the world’s last, best chance to get a grip on a problem that, absent urgent action over the next decade, could spin out of control.”
Bill McKibben has stated, “In order to spur those talks along, [UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon] invited the world’s leaders to New York in late September for a climate summit. …At the moment, the overwhelming sense around the world is nothing will happen in time. That’s on the verge of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy… A loud movement – one that gives our ‘leaders’ permission to actually lead, and then scares them into doing so – is the only hope of upending that prophecy.”
To “scare” so-called leaders like Harper and Abbott, the Council of Canadians has endorsed the People’s Climate March that will be taking place on September 20-21 in New York City. We are helping to organize buses to leave from Ottawa and Toronto for this massive protest.
We encourage Council of Canadians supporters who can make it to New York City for this protest to be there. More on this at Council endorse the People’s Climate March, Sept. 20-21.
