Energy & Climate Change

Flood

Global climate change is the single biggest environmental threat facing the planet.

Climate change is being caused by burning too much 'fossil fuels' such as oil, gas and coal. It is also caused by destroying habitats such as forests and peat bogs.

There is much that can be done to stop catastrophic climate change but decisive action is needed from governments and industry now.

Forest fire

What will climate change mean ?

Floods in Mozambique. Forest fires in Indonesia. Hurricanes in America. Storms in the UK.

'Freak' weather events like these are predicted to become more frequent because of climate change.

The UN University Environment Institute in Bonn reported in June 04 that almost a fifth of the world's population - more than 2 billion people - could face devastating floods by 2050.

Greenhouse gases

What causes climate change?

Climate change is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other polluting greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. These gases alter the heat balance in our atmosphere and so cause climate change.

Scientists say human activities, such as burning coal, oil and gas in power stations to generate electricity, are to blame.

What can we do?

The key action is to reduce our emission of greenhouse gases by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. We need to:

• Stop wasting energy through poor insulation and inefficent industrial processes
• Generate electricity with 'renewables' such as wind power instead of burning fossil fuels
• Reverse the trend of ever-increasing passenger and freight transport
• Slow down growth of air travel - the fastest growing contributor to climate change

Climate change villains

What is preventing progress?

Rich countries, like the US, Canada and Australia don't want to take action to halt climate change. But it's the poorest people who are already suffering most and they can't afford to wait.

The UK Government supports proposals to combat climate change but there's little real action. Worryingly, dangerous technologies like nuclear power are being given serious consideration.

One of the biggest problems is the vested interests opposing action on climate change. The US in particular is opposing action, because the government is funded and to a large extent controlled by corporations such as Esso. If Bush was acting on global warming, he wouldn't need to invade Iraq for cheap oil. Esso, more than any other oil company, is sabotaging international action on global warming.

Links to other Pages

Climate change sites

A major new alliance of groups was lanched in 2005 - Stop Climate Chaos.
A long-established, more radical campaigning group is Campaign Against Climate Change.
Another long-established campaigning group is Rising Tide.

Other sites and information

For more information on these issues, see the national Friends of the Earth (FOE) web site.
This contains a useful booklet on energy and climate change (9 page A5 leaflet; 500 kbytes PDF file).
See also booklet on windpower issues (11 page A5 leaflet; 400 kbytes PDF file).

Local groups

These groups in West London have campaigns on energy and climate change:
Harrow FOE
Kingston FOE
Ealing FOE
Richmond FOE
Hammersmith & Fulham FOE

News and and stories

Many believe that global warming is the biggest issue (Jan 04). But the British and US governments are trying to play down the issue of global warming by suppressing reports and gagging officials who speak out about the issue:
Blair gags Chief Scientist (Mar 04)
Government censors publication of statistics (May 04)
US government suppresses global warming report (Feb 04)
Now (Sep 05) we see disastrous hurricanes just as Tony Blair starts a U-turn away from action on climate change.
See also more evidence of Blair u-turn (Nov 05)
Progress on climate change bill (Oct 06)
2006 hottest ever year (Jan 07)
Carbon reduction group set up (Jan 07)
Climate camp at Heathrow (July 07)

Acknowledgment: Thanks are due to national FOE for use of their material on this page.

Updated Jan 07