Climate change is not only a problem for the health of the planet and its inhabitants, but it is also beginning to affect individual freedoms and social justice. Many people find themselves in a vulnerable situation due to the consequences of climate change and are forced to leave their region because they can no longer provide for themselves.
Faced with this situation, the project “End Climate Change, Start Climate of Change” was born, with the support of the DEAR program (Development education and awareness raising) of the European Commission. This ambitious project aims to find sustainable solutions and policy changes to preserve the planet for future generations, as well as to share the responsibility for the protection of the Earth fairly. We believe that change is truly about politics.
Sign the online petition “End Climate Change, Start Climate of Change”
To achieve its goal, the #ClimateofChange project and campaign proposes the following actions:
- To keep global warming below 1.5°C to avoid catastrophic levels, the European Union must accelerate its climate neutrality ambitions for 2040, that is, a decade ahead of the current 2050 target. The EU must decarbonize its economy by accelerating the transition to clean and renewable energy technologies to replace fossil fuels.
- Second, the shift to a socially and ecologically just welfare economy, which places the interests of society and nature above those of business and adopts indicators that go beyond GDP: the welfare economy must abandon the current destructive fixation on constant economic and productivity growth. Instead, it must be regenerative, sustainable, democratic, equitable and caring.
- Foster local resilience and global justice by providing financial and technical support to countries affected by climate change and by developing an international protection system for climate change-induced migration. Equitable and human rights-based migration and adaptation policies would strengthen the resilience of the most vulnerable people. They will also improve well-being in communities of origin, transit and destination.
- Finally, youth are important but underrepresented actors with a stake in the present and even more so in the future. Policy makers should enable youth participation and integrate their views and vision into policy making through the creation of youth councils in the EU and in the Member States. These youth councils should acquire the status of social partners in the EU and its Member States and would be in contact with the UN Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.
In order to make your voice heard, we invite everyone interested to sign the online petition “End Climate Change, Start Climate of Change”, whose main objective is to raise awareness of the links between climate change and migration, and the need for a welfare economy
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This petition will be handed over to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at an event organized by the Climate of Change consortium on the occasion of the COP 27 which will take place in November 2022 in Egypt.
With your signatures, we hope to trigger the debate and put these demands on the European policy agenda.
N.B.: Your data will be shared with the European Commission to document the number of signatures supporting the petition and will not be used for any other purpose. Your data will be kept by the consortium for at least 5 years. All information will be processed in accordance with the European and national requirements of the GDPR.
[Photo credits: @Quiqueg]