Scottish Catholic Observer

During a meeting in London Jill Wood, SCIAF policy officer, told Peter Betts, director of international climate change at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), that the UK should do all it can to push for a fair, ambitious and legally binding global deal on climate change in Durban.

She also handed over 2000 campaign postcards completed by SCIAF supporters calling on the UK Government to be a driving force in delivering a global deal at this year’s UN conference on climate change. The postcards state SCIAF’s conviction that the UK government should provide ‘its fair share of new finance to help people in developing countries to adapt to climate change’ and ensure ‘that a global deal includes legally binding agreements for wealthy industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to safe levels.”

Speaking after the meeting Ms Wood said it was a privilege to deliver SCIAF’s message to the UK government.

“Thousands of people in Scotland have shown that they care passionately about justice and demand that wealthy industrialised nations curb their greenhouse gas emissions and pay financial compensation to developing countries who are being hit first and hardest by climate change,” she said. “We have now passed these messages on to the UK Government and will be monitoring their actions in the coming weeks.”

She went on to say that SCIAF and its partners from around the world would be represented at the Durban summit.

“SCIAF and our partners will also be at the negotiations in Durban because it is vital that the voices of the poorest members of the global community are heard at the highest level,” she said. “Negotiators and politicians from the wealthy industrialised nations must be clear that they have an unequivocal moral obligation to take action to deliver a global climate change deal that is fair, ambitious and legally binding.”