Green political parties from across Europe made a successful European parliament election this past week. The European Greens gained 11 new seats in the parliament and will now have a total of 46 Green MEPs, an increase with 31%. The Greens/EFA Group is now likely to have 53 MEPS (46 Greens and 7 EFA MEPs).
“To have increased the number of Green MEPs from 35 to 46 is a great success. Our showing is even more remarkable when you consider that we have 11 more seats than before in a parliament with 49 fewer MEPS and that all other groups have shrunk”, said EGP Co-Spokesperson Philippe Lamberts, who has been elected a MEP for the Belgian French-speaking Green Party Ecolo.
In France the green political party Europe-Ecologie gained 16% of the votes and will thus send 13 green MEPs to the European parliament. Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are other countries where the greens will receive more MEPs than from the last EU election. In Greece 3.48% of the people voted for Ecologoi-Prasinoi and as a result Greece will be able to send their first green MEP to the European Parliament.
Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi (more known as brokep) the co-founder of the Pirate Bay, the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, also wants you to vote green in the upcoming European elections.
The upcoming European Elections are just a few days away. And when it comes to saving the climate this EU election is one of the more important ones. And I believe it’s definitely something you must take part in if you care the slightest about the climate, your children and their future, the environment or just the well state of your country.
Find your country’s green party and vote for it in the upcoming EU election. It really isn’t harder than that! This is our chance to vote for change. Don’t waste it.
The upcoming European Elections are just a few weeks away. And when it comes to saving the climate this EU election is one of the more important ones. And I believe it’s definitely something you must take part in if you care the slightest about the climate, your children and their future, the environment or just the well state of your country.
As you probably already know by now time is no longer on our side when it comes to fighting man-made climate change. We need radical actions now if we are to have the slightest chance to stop the worst doomsday scenarios. That is why this election is so important. Because whatever you like it or not the decisions which are being made in the European Parliament affects all member states. So this is our chance to vote for meaningful actions against climate change that will affect politics and regulations both in Europe and around the world. Don’t wait until the next European Parliament elections in 2014, because then it will be too late.
During the embarrassing UN Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland, Al Gore held a speech where he said that the old and now “inadequate” climate change targets of 450 ppm (parts per million of CO2) had been made obsolete by new science (That’s what we and others have been saying for a while now). Gore said that the world should instead aim for a 350 ppm target.
Leaders from the European Union (EU) have just agreed on a new watered-down climate deal to tackle global warming. The actual emissions cuts could amount to as little as 4% by 2020.
Yesterday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in Poznan that “the world is watching us. The next generation is counting on us. We must not fail.” He also called for the EU to show the way and leadership on the climate crisis for other countries. Unfortunately it seems the short-sighted “leaders” of Europe ignored him. Instead of 30% emission cuts by 2020 the EU leaders only agreed on cuts by 20% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
But the actual emission cuts could end up being as little as 4% by 2020, environmental groups warned. That is because of special exemptions for dirty industries in Europe as well as allowing cheap emission cuts overseas to be counted to the EU total. The latter has been heavily pushed by the new Swedish right-wing government who has called for as much as 88% of the EU emission cuts to be allowed to do overseas in development countries.
George Monbiot talks with Yvo de Boer, the current Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in the first of a series of interviews from the Guardian. In the video you can, for example, see Yvo de Boer defend George Bush and expensive Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects.
In the first of a remarkable series of video interviews, Britain’s leading green commentator, George Monbiot, charges the UN’s leading climate change official with lacking ambition for a global emissions deal, and takes him to task over expensive carbon offset schemes and his support for the US president, George Bush. In the coming weeks, Monbiot takes on the bosses of Shell and the International Energy Agency and more.
Avaaz, an independent and not-for-profit global campaigning organization, says that European leadership on climate is “essential to secure us all a global deal” in the UN climate conference in Poznań, Poland. Unfortunately have Germany, Poland and Italy so far been the “main blockers” during the climate negotiations for strong European actions.
But Avaaz says that Poland has begun to change their mind and that now only Germany and Italy are left “standing in the way”. And so they want you to help them put pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel “to do the smart thing for the environment and the economy”.
Germany is the key – Chancellor Merkel is normally a climate champion, but has caved to industry, fearing for German jobs. She needs to hear from us that a Green Recovery is the answer to both our climate and our economic crises.
Merkel cares a great deal about her international reputation, which is why Avaaz has delivered our 150,000-strong petition and protested at her international meetings with the Poles. But now for the punch: an Avaaz commissioned opinion poll which reveals that 85% of Merkel’s own people are calling for her to show leadership in securing a strong climate deal. Together, we can help push Merkel over the edge — follow this link to leave her a quick message encouraging her to do the smart thing for the environment and the economy: http://www.avaaz.org/en/merkel_lead_on_climate/
So far the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland, hasn’t really been that promising. But hopefully things turn out a bit better by the end of the conference. At least 49 countries now support a 350 ppm climate target.
Below you can find videos from the press briefings for the first week:
I just got this email and video from 350, the global grassroots climate movement:
It’s 3 in the morning in Poland and I need your help with an experiment. Can you take 2 minutes watch an animation and help take over YouTube?
A little background: starting a week ago, a few members of the international 350.org team have converged for the annual UN Climate Conference. It’s a little crazy here–over 9,000 people representing 190 countries have gathered to negotiate our collective future. Things are changing by the hour, and there’s both bad news and good news to report.
The bad news first: lots of countries still don’t get it, and some (most notably, the EU) are using delay tactics to postpone action, squandering time that scientists say we simply do not have.
Now for the good news: over 49 of the least developed countries (that’s more than a quarter of the world’s nations) just announced support for a 350 target. This is AMAZING, as last year a 350 goal wasn’t even on the map. It’s testament to your hard work–and the very real threats these countries are facing right now–that we’ve come so far in such a short time.
The UN climate conference in Poznań, Poland, has started. The conference will be held on 1st – 12th of December. Thousands of participants from around the world will discuss and negotiate on an “ambitious and effective” international climate change agreement. The meeting is the “halfway mark” until Copenhagen in 2009.
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Photo credit: rockcohen
