Climate Change

Climate Change - Your city protects the climate Climate change which results mainly from the actions of citizens of cities in the wealthy global North hits hardest in the global South.

People living in the furthest corners of the Earth are no different to us, yet in their opinion, we Europeans live in a paradise, while they are in hell: wars over access to clean drinking water, droughts causing famine and death, floods and hurricanes destroying peoples’ livelihoods. Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions, mainly the effect of typically northern European urban lifestyles, hits hardest at the poorest people in the global south. Future generations will also be affected as they will be forced to pay our “climate bills”.

The Greens do not accept a division into the “first”, “second” or “third world” because among other reasons, pollution knows no borders. That is why all of us must act in solidarity to prevent climate change and to protect the global environment. The future of our shared earth depends on it.

Currently in the EU, 400 cities in 17 countries (over 10 percent of the EU’s inhabitants) are members of the Climate Alliance which promotes policies aiming to reduce energy use and cut down CO2 emissions. In 2007, the Climate Alliance awarded 13 cities with the Climate Star award for the introduction of such policies. The cities included Essen, Sheffield and Ghent. Yet this is still too little to halt the most dramatic effects of climate change.

After China and the United States, the European Union is the third largest emitter of CO2 in the world. That is why in March 2007, the EU accepted a strategy of cutting down CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020 (30 percent if the U.S.A, China and other polluter countries accept the strategy). It is vitally important that we take part in realising this strategy by introducing innovative local climate policies in European towns and cities.

Did You Know?

 * The report prepared for the British government by the economist Nicholas Stern in 2007, indicates that if drastic action on an international scale is not taken immediately, the social and economic consequences of climate change over the coming decades will be comparable to those of the two world wars in the 20th century.