Climate Emergency declarations: the successes of the XR UK movement
XR Aus, 1 May 2019
Brave rebels in the United Kingdom have caused massive disruption in central London during ten days of peaceful civil disobedience, with over 1000 arrests.
Their courageous and creative actions are already showing results with three amazing wins recently achieved, all directly related to the work of XR and the School Strike for Climate.
EDIT (2/5/19): The UK Parliament have declared a national environment and climate emergency!
“Thanks to pressure from the Labour Party, the UK just became the first country to declare an environment and #climateemergency,” the party said on its Twitter page.
“Now it’s time for real action to tackle climate change.”
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the UK Labour Party is poised to table a motion which will force MPs to vote on whether the UK should declare a climate and ecological emergency. He said the recent wave of protests were “a massive and necessary wake-up call” that demanded “rapid and dramatic action, which only concerted government action and a green industrial revolution can deliver” and that if parliament backed the move and became the first national legislature to declare a climate emergency it would “trigger a wave of action from governments around the world”.
Meanwhile, Oxford City Council declared a climate emergency, and has become the first Government body to put together a citizen’s assembly to oversee the necessary actions and changes needed in light of this declaration.
And that’s not all, the UK government’s ‘fracking zsar’,’Natascha Engel has quit after only six months in the job, saying that developing the industry would be ‘an impossible t’sk’ and blaming activists for making her job impossible.
Not to mention – Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon became the first world leader to declare a “climate emergency”.
She told delegates at a party conference in Edinburgh she was inspired after meeting young climate activists: “A few weeks ago, I met some of the young climate change campaigners who’ve gone on strike from school to raise awareness of their cause. They want governments around the world to declare a climate emergency. They say that’s what the science tells us. And they are right. So today, as first minister of Scotland, I am declaring that there is a climate emergency. And Scotland will live up to our responsibility to tackle it.”
The Welsh government has declared a national climate emergency, thanks to the pressure put on by the XR Wales demonstrators. This is a massive achievement, as Wales has beat the UK at becoming the first country to declare a national emergency in the face of climate and ecological collapse.
Help make the climate and ecological emergency an election issue. Join XR rebels with banners and flyers outside election forums around Australia in the coming weeks, and lets see if we can’t get our Government to declare a national climate emergency as well. Time’s up!