Following the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Havering’s Extinction Rebellion today write in the Havering Daily:
Dear Havering,
As you will most likely know, COP26 is currently being held in Glasgow. COP26 is a chance for world leaders to come together and make real change to save us from the effects of climate change, which are beginning to show themselves even in our western world today. You all will have seen or felt the effects of the local flooding we have experienced as recently as this year caused by rapid and increased rainfall due to climate change.
Unfortunately, in the global south they are already seeing much more destructive weather events aftering their lifestyles, and even endangering their way of life. Such regions face the real prospect of becoming uninhabitable in the not too distant future; the threat therefore being very real and immediate for them.
We see COP26 as a real opportunity to take meaningful and radical climate action to avert the worst of the climate crisis which we are in – this climate emergency is happening now.
We believe COP26 can be a summit which sees us come up with the solutions and ideas, ready to implement immediately to steer us down an alternative path to the one we are currently on. There is now no doubt that we are on the path to extinction. The choices that we make now will decide whether we can turn this disaster around to leave a planet and a borough with clean air and a stable climate – a safe environment in which we and our children are able to thrive.
Our most-asked question is ‘China are the biggest polluters, what can we do?’ Ourselves as Havering residents, we can lobby our Councillors for the truth and to act now against the causes of climate change. As UK residents, we can lobby our MP’s for those same changes on a national scale. As citizens of the world we can be the cause of real change. We can unite and take the fight for climate justice to the largest oil companies and polluters globally. This creates real change on the scale needed to save regions which would otherwise become uninhabitable; save species which would otherwise become extinct; and ultimately lessen the blow on the generations we leave behind.
What will you reply when your grandchildren ask, ‘what did you do to fight the climate crisis’?
Our three demands as Extinction Rebellion are for the Government to tell the truth, for them to act now, and for them to go beyond politics to save us from the consequences of climate change. We are not trying to make enemies, we reserve that space for oil companies and fossil fuel investors, but nice words are not enough anymore. It is imperative we push governments into long-lasting, meaningful action to fight the climate crisis.
We should all have a right to live in a world free from pollution and the threat of climate chaos. However, our Government is refusing us this universal right. Protest and raising our voices in the face of wrongdoing is now our only route to this basic freedom. This is what we are fighting for.
We are fighting against those intent on making short-term gains through lining their pockets and fuelling the big oil companies. They are suffocating our planet, along with the governments who stand idly by, giving these polluters a green light.
We ask you to join us in that fight in Havering as local and global residents, by thinking globally and acting locally; in the interests of our planet and our children. For all those younger readers, this is your future which hangs in the balance.
This is what is at stake and so we demand urgent action from Havering Council; not merely in pockets of green projects which grab headlines, but a coherent plan to make the air we breathe cleaner, the sea levels lower and the planet cooler.
We demand this action of our local, national and global governments; to meet this global problem and come together at COP26 to bring us urgent solutions to the problems we have all been blindly led to. The evidence is clear that humanity needs to change course, and that change is long overdue.
However big the issue, remember no-one is too small to make a difference and there is still hope in this very decisive decade.
Join us today at XR Havering and be the change we need to see in the world.
Contact us @XR_Havering/ XRHavering@gmail.com