This week Bosco Santimano, founder and executive director of social enterprise You Can Cook, shares his thoughts on climate change.
Recent climate protests proves a point our organisation has been making since it was founded in 2007! Climate change is real and is causing havoc around the planet and will have a massive impact on whether we survive as a species in the coming decades. The greed of Politicians and Corporations have done everything in their power to bring us to where we are today i.e. on the brink of extinction. We fully support all the children who skipped school to make their voices heard as this is the generation that will bear the brunt of the chaos and devastation that previous generations allowed to happen on their watch. The organisers of this march had four key demands;
- The national curriculum should be reformed to include “the ecological crisis”
- The government should declare a “climate emergency”
- It should also inform the public about the seriousness of the situation
- The age of voting should be lowered to 16 so younger people can be involved in decision-making around environmental issues.
This day of action was inspired by the Swedish 16 year old Greta Thunberg who started her climate change protest outside the Swedish parliament last year and encouraged students to walk out of schools to highlight the issue. Last year in May another group was founded and supported by Academics called Extinction Rebellion. This organisation is a socio-political movement which uses non-violent resistance to protest against climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse. During their latest protests in London which kick started on 15th April, Greta was one of the high profile protesters along with actress Emma Thompson and author Philip Pullman. Extinction Rebellion is urging the UK government to “tell the truth” and declare a climate and ecological emergency and wants the UK to reduce its greenhouse gases to net zero by 2025 and the creation of a Citizens Assembly to formulate and approve legislations and processes initiated in conjunction with government.
The UK government has said that greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 42% since the 90’s, a gross inaccurate figure as international aviation, shipping and imports are some of the categories not accounted for in the final calculation! A very creative carbon accounting methodology as Greta Thunberg commented. Every year countries that signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement, submit their overall emissions figures to the United Nations. That reporting is all done on a territorial basis, so they unfortunately exclude the above mentioned categories.
China is the major emitter of carbon gases in the world, but is it really? The West has literally transferred most of its manufacturing to China in the last 3 decades, hence brining down emissions in their own countries. Is it fair to then accuse China of being the Worlds largest polluter just because its communist style governance allows the West access to millions of slave labour and cheap goods with no rights whatsoever?
It’s time to change now.
*Originally written & published in the Peeblesshire News.