3:54pm Saturday 7th November 2009
By Alex Lewis
CAMPAIGNERS marched through the busy centre of St Albans this afternoon to demand an international deal to battle climate change when world leaders meet in Copenhagen next month.
Dressed in blue and carrying banners and placards, a group of about 50 representatives of various local environmental groups marched from the Alban Arena through the nearby farmers' market.
They included members of Greenpeace, the Green Party, Friends Of The Earth, Oxfam, the World Development Movement and the St Albans Churches Environmental Group.
Hilary Tyrell of Oxfam said: “Climate change is already happening, if we do not do something about it now, it will be too late.
“We are flirting with disaster.
“We must have an international agreement to reduce emmissions.”
Jeff Heine of the World Development Movement said: “We in the rich countries owe a huge debt to the Third World for all the damage we have done to them through climate change.
“Domestic animals kept by farmers are dying because of the droughts.
“Climate change is killing more than 300,000 people a year and it is set to get much worse.
“Countries like the UK have filled the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.
“It's time to do the decent thing and pay the world's poorest people back for all the damage we have caused.”
The groups are planning to join a major national demonstration in Westminster on December 5, two days before leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss how they will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial gases which are warming the Earth.
The emission reductions agreed by 184 nations in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012, and campaigners hope for a new deal covering future years.
Louise Neicho of the Woodland Trust said: "Deforestation accounts for nearly 20 per cent of carbon dioxide emmissions.
"We need a treaty from Copenhagen that secures absolute protection for the world's forests."
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