Eco-Group Urges End to Fossil Fuel Investments

Posted on April 10, 2014

A climate crisis that risks peace and security can still be avoided by accelerating the clean energy revolution, Greenpeace said on Tuesday.

Issuing an SOS emergency alert ahead of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Japan, Greenpeace warned that climate change is already devastating nations, destroying lives and costing billions of dollars in damage.

“This is a crisis that knows no boundaries. Our climate is on the precipice and every ton of oil, coal and gas we are digging up and burning pushes us closer to the brink,” said Kaisa Kosonen, Greenpeace International campaigner. “But there’s a way out of this mess. Renewable energy has made a breakthrough faster than thought and is ready to challenge our old hazardous energy system.”

Greenpeace activists yesterday displayed the message ‘Climate SOS – Go Renewables’ outside the J-POWER’s Isogo 1 & 2 coal power plant and Tepco’s Minami Yokohama gas power plant near where the IPCC meeting in Yokohama to highlight the cause of climate change and the solution to the unfolding crisis.

Meeting to finalize the Working Group II report on ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’, the IPCC will discuss climate action in the context of sustainable development. The Japanese government, which is hosting this week’s meeting, is failing to meet the IPCC’s challenge.

“With IPCC’s scheduled release of this timely report, the dire scenario is no longer a threat from a distant future.  In fact, it is already happening in many countries- the Philippines in particular and across Southeast Asia which is among the most vulnerable yet least prepared to deal with climate change impacts,” said Amalie Obusan, Regional Climate Campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia and a delegate to the climate talks in Japan.  “When super typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines last November, it claimed thousands of lives and left trail of destruction that will take several years to rebuild.  We urge world leaders to recognize what scientists all over the world have been saying: to act on genuine positive solutions to climate change.”

Greenpeace says coal burning is the biggest single driver of climate change. But coal has a massive water footprint too, making it one of the largest threats to water security, add to that the air pollution problem making it clear that a move away from coal is inevitable and in fact has already started.

“While the IPCC report will make grim reading, the key message here is choice. Will we continue drifting from one disaster to another, or will we take control of our future? We’re at a crossroads and the choices we make now will determine how history judges us. To make the shift away from coal and other fossil fuels fast enough though is a key fight that communities, decision-makers and investors have to unite on,” added Kosonen.

Japan has lowered its target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and it is also emerging as the world’s biggest public investor of coal expansion overseas. Now it is planning a return to nuclear energy despite the ongoing Fukushima disaster. (Greenpeace Philippines)